The author's main interest was economic history but on beginning to write this book he became aware that this was too large a task so he attempted "to trace one strand in the economic life of England from the close of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the Civil War." This strand was agrarian life. The resulting book looks closely at rural life in England and discusses issues such as landlords, tenants, and smallholders.
The author's main interest was economic history but on beginning to write this book he became aware that this was too large a task so he attempted "to trace one strand in the economic life of England from the close of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the Civil War." This strand was agrarian life. The resulting book looks closely at rural life in England and discusses issues such as landlords, tenants, and smallholders.
Presenting a full and precise description of all legal ties between landlord and tenant in early modern England, Agrarian Problems in the Sixteenth Century and After re-examines one of the key issues in English agrarian history - the question of the legal security of the copyholder. Comparing historical records and literary evidence, Agrarian Problems in the Sixteenth Century and After reprints much of the important 1969 edition of the book, and asserts that: * customary tenants enjoyed legal security in and before the sixteenth century * enclosures proceeded legally, without oppression, and in much the same form (whether ratified in parliament or not) throughout the whole period * depopulation was less extensive than sometimes supposed and that such depopulation as there was often proved economically profitable and not without social benefit. When first published in 1969, this fascinating book represented a unique viewpoint that affected, and in some cases reversed, much accepted opinion. As a landmark work in a highly important area of English agrarian history, it still has considerable impact today.
Have land reform movements ever managed to redistribute wealth, to encourage economic development, to improve standards of living, to ensure political stability? This book answers in the negative. Drawing upon land reform movements over twenty-six centuries of history, Tuma develops a hypothesis about land tenure reform that should enable other scholars to evaluate the success of past reform movements and to see the trends of present and future ones more clearly. In the first part of the study, a general definition of land tenure reform is advanced. Starting with the ordinary meaning of reform as "a redistribution of land to benefit the small farmer or landless agricultural worker," this definition is modified so as to take into account various forms of tenure of title to land, patterns of cultivation, terms of holding, and scale of operation. The middle section of the book presents a comparative study of different types of land reform movements. Eight major "case histories" are considered--the Greek reforms of Solon and Pisistratus in the sixth century B.C.; the Roman reforms of the Gracchi in the second century B.C.; the English tenure changes covering the commutations of the Middle Ages, and the enclosures of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries; the reforms accompanying the French Revolution; the three Russian reforms: the emancipation of 1861, the Stolypin reforms of 1906 - 1911, and the Soviet reform beginning in 1917; the Mexican reform after the 1910 revolution; the Japanese reform after the Second World War; and the Egyptian reform starting in 1952. In sum, the book relates the land reform movements of past centuries to those now in progress in underdeveloped countries. It argues that the land reforms of the last two decades have dealt with symptoms rather than causes, have affected only a small percentage of either the population or the cultivable area, and warns that even if high concentrations of the land-holdings are broken down, reconcentration is likely to recur unless strong preventive measures are taken. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1965.
Between the end of the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution, the long-established structures and practices of European agriculture and industry were slowly, disparately, but profoundly transformed. Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe, first published in 1997, narrates and analyzes the diverse patterns of economic change that permanently modified rural and urban production, altered Europe's economy and geography, and gave birth to new social classes. Broad in chronological and geographical scope and explicitly comparative, the book introduces readers to a wealth of information drawn from thoughout Mediterranean, east-central, and western Europe, as well as to the classic interpretations and current debates and revisions. The study incorporates scholarship on topics such as the world economy and women's work, and it discusses at length the impact of the emergent capitalist order on Europe's working people.
This book is the first available survey of English agriculture between 1500 and 1850. It combines new evidence with recent findings from the specialist literature, to argue that the agricultural revolution took place in the century after 1750. Taking a broad view of agrarian change, the author begins with a description of sixteenth-century farming and an analysis of its regional structure. He then argues that the agricultural revolution consisted of two related transformations. The first was a transformation in output and productivity brought about by a complex set of changes in farming practice. The second was a transformation of the agrarian economy and society, including a series of related developments in marketing, landholding, field systems, property rights, enclosure and social relations. Written specifically for students, this book will be invaluable to anyone studying English economic and social history, or the history of agriculture.
