How do peasants, producing mainly for themselves, become capitalist farmers, producing largely for sale? What happens to farm sizes, farming practices, the farm family, farm workers, and the relationships between cultivators and others in the process of this transition? How far does it vary from region to region? Is it inherent in the peasantry, or must it be instigated by landlord, townsfolk or the state? These questions are answered by carefully combining theories with meticulous analysis of the abundant Swedish documentation that has survived.

Using meticulous archival research, Alan Baker challenges the orthodox portrayal of nineteenth-century French peasants as individualists and examines the extent to which they both continued with traditional forms of community action and developed new forms of collective action. More specifically, he examines the development and spread of voluntary associations in Loir-et-Cher, on the southwestern margin of the Paris Basin. He focuses on associations aimed at reducing risk and uncertainty (mainly livestock insurance associations, mutual aid societies, and volunteer fire brigades), and on...

David Meyer traces Hong Kong's vibrant history from the arrival of the foreign trading firms in the 1840s to its celebrated handover to China in 1997. Throughout this period, Hong Kong has been a pivotal meeting place of the Chinese and foreign social networks of capital. The author offers an optimistic view of Hong Kong in the twenty-first century, challenging those who predict its decline under Chinese rule. The story of Hong Kong's success will interest anyone concerned with its past, present and future.

This book specifically examines the history of the concept of a North-South divide in England during the last millennium, a concept which has surfaced in recent political debates about regional contrasts in wealth and welfare in England. Concerned with different historical periods between 1086 and 2000, six essays examine both the material geography of England, in terms of its broad regional differences in population, economy, society and culture, and the geography of England as imagined by the people of those periods.

This study uses the experience of Cracow to illuminate general patterns of trade and urban growth in Central and Eastern Europe over several centuries. Dr. Carter describes the regions and places of special significance for Cracow's trade development, and examines the principal trading flows and commodity movements within the overall context of European economic and social change. Trade and Urban Development in Poland will make a major contribution to our understanding of the historical geography of Central and Eastern Europe.

This revealing new book presents some of the first researches into a trove of hitherto inaccessible primary source material. A controversial component of Lloyd George's People's Budget of 1909-10 was the "New Domesday" of landownership and land values. This documentation, long locked away in the Inland Revenue's offices, became available to the public in the late 1970s. Dr. Short offers both a coherent overview and a standard source of reference to this valuable archive. Part I is concerned with the processes of assembling the material and its style of representation; Part II with suggested...

How did the major European imperial powers and indigenous populations experience imperialism and colonisation in the period 1880-1960? In this richly-illustrated comparative account, Robin Butlin provides a comprehensive overview of the experiences of individual European imperial powers - British, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian, German and Italian and the reactions of indigenous peoples. He explores the complex processes and discourses of colonialism, conquest and resistance from the height of empire through to decolonisation and sets these within the dynamics of the...