Agrarian Change and Economic Development is a landmark volume that examines the historical experience of the relationship between agrarian change and economic development. Because agriculture was until recently man's dominant occupation, scholars have traditionally drawn little attention to its immense historical importance. The essays in this book redress this balance, and illustrate the significance of the western world's escape from an overwhelmingly agrarian condition. It is therefore an ideal work for encouraging those concerned with current problems to perceive agricultural development as professional historians see it, and to question the oversimplified historical analogies commonly employed in development economics. Presenting historical examples of change within particular agricultural systems, and discussing their implications for national economic development, both social scientists and planners less concerned with historical revision will have equal reason to welcome these case studies of the long-run interaction of agrarian change and economic activity. This classic book was first published in 1969.

Study conducted in Oudh, India.

This book is situated at the crossroads of two recurring themes in rural history: agrarian contracts and property rights. Emphyteusis is at the heart of agrarian history in that it brings together agricultural history and the nature of social relations in traditional societies. Despite this, many such contracts have been blithely ignored, or unjustly dismissed, either because they are hard to identify, given the many variants that existed, or because, as a form of divided property, they are generally perceived in a negative light. Nevertheless, emphyteusis is to be found everywhere, even in regions which deny its existence, and it is far from being obsolete. Rather, it is flourishing, prospering and long-lived, particularly in urban areas. Emphyteusis has a long history and has played a central role, sometimes misleading, but always crucial, in the process of agricultural development. It has held sway as a substitute when access to property has been impossible, and as a source of conflicts has often revealed the nature of power relations between property owners on the one hand, whether seigneurial or not, and cultivators, short-term and long-term tenants on the other. The different chapters in this volume illuminate these multiple facets and forms of this type of contract and imperfect property rights. Though the focus is on Mediterranean societies, the questions raised have relevance far beyond this specific area.

This collective volume aims at studying a variety of labour history themes in Southern Europe, and investigating the transformations of labour and labour relations that these areas underwent in the 19th and the 20th centuries. The subjects studied include industrial labour relations in Southern Europe; labour on the sea and in the shipyards of the Mediterranean; small enterprises and small land ownership in relation to labour; formal and informal labour; the tendency towards independent work and the role of culture; forms of labour management (from paternalistic policies to the provision of welfare capitalism); the importance of the institutional framework and the wider political context; and women’s labour and gender relations.

"Commodities provide a lens through which local and global histories can be understood and written. The study of commodities history follows these goods as they make their way from land and water through processing and trade to eventual consumption. It is a fast-developing field with collaborative, comparative, and interdisciplinary research, with new information technologies becoming increasingly important. Although many individual researchers continue to focus on particular commodities and regions, they often do so in partnership with others working on different areas and employing a range of theoretical and methodological approaches, placing commodities history at the forefront of local and global historical analysis. This Oxford Handbook features contributions from scholars involved in these developments across a range of countries and linguistic regions. They discuss the state of the art in their fields, draw on their own work, and signal lacunae for future research. Each of its 31 chapters focuses on an important thematic area within commodities history: key approaches, global histories, modes of production, people and land, environmental impact, consumption, and new methodologies. Taken together, the Oxford Handbook of Commodities History offers insight into the directions in which commodities history is heading, and the multiple ways in which it can contribute to a better understanding of the world"--