Peasantry to capitalism

How do peasants, producing mainly for themselves, become capitalist farmers, producing largely for sale? How far are peasants, anyway, involved in other pursuits besides subsistence farming, such as industry and dealing? What happens to farm sizes, farming practices, the farm family, farm workers, non-farming activities and the relationships between cultivators and other people, in the countryside and the town, 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 landlords, towns, or the state?

These are some of the questions addressed by Goran Hoppe and John Langton in this study of regional change in Sweden. The authors have carefully combined theories about the transition from peasantry to capitalism with meticulous analysis of the abundant Swedish records. Through this 'new regional geography', they reveal the wide geographical variety and rich socio-economic complexity of the changes which occurred in the process of modernisation in the nineteenth century.

The authors show that regional geography can be brought to bear on important questions about the way the world changes. They also show that explanations of economic and social change must get to grips with the wide variety of regional geographical experience if they are to be plausible.