Examining how and why agricultural change and development occurred in Western
Europe between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries is the central task of
this unique comparative, historical study. It describes the factors that account
for the transformation of a poor, unproductive agricultural region to a region
with much higher productivity and burgeoning industrialization. Countries
examined and compared are England, the Netherlands, France, the German lands,
and Sweden.
What makes this volume so compelling is the extent to which the various fields
of history, economics, political science, and sociology are integrated and
employed. Hopcroft demonstrates that a key factor in agrarian development was
the rural economic organization or "field system,"