Agricultural Revolution in England : The Transformation of the Agrarian Economy 1500-1850 (Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography)

Rating:
Summary: Focused and Substantial Scholarship
Review: Overton aims at answering a set of focused but important questions. Was there an 'Agricultural Revolution', a relatively discrete and identifiable period of marked improvement in agricultural output, in Britain. If so, when? If so, of what did it consist? What were its social corollaries? In the clearly written and very well documented book, Overton provides sensible answers.
Overton points out that Britain escaped a 'Malthusian trap' by boosting agricultural output hugely with increasing labor productivity, providing excess food to feed an expanding population and providing the extra population and food needed to support the conversion to an industrial economy. The key period is the century from 1750 to 1850. A series of technological and managerial innovations made this burst of productivity possible, many if not all introduced into or developed in Britain prior to the crucial century. The period after 1750, however, sees the integration of these methods into a powerfully synergistic whole.
Driving forces for these developments were the expansion of national markets for crops and increasing monetarization of the rural economy. All of these processes were accompanied by and reinforced by marked social changes including the decline of relatively self-sufficient farmers and villages, marked changes in land tenure patterns, and the emergence of a tripartite rural social system of landowners, tenant farmers, and a large body of landless laborers. Many of these processes were in train prior to 1750 but the period after that sees an acceleration of social change.
Overton is focused on Britain but surely this story has general implications.

Rating:
Summary: Focused and Substantial Scholarship
Review: Overton aims at answering a set of focused but important questions. Was there an 'Agricultural Revolution', a relatively discrete and identifiable period of marked improvement in agricultural output, in Britain. If so, when? If so, of what did it consist? What were its social corollaries? In the clearly written and very well documented book, Overton provides sensible answers.
Overton points out that Britain escaped a 'Malthusian trap' by boosting agricultural output hugely with increasing labor productivity, providing excess food to feed an expanding population and providing the extra population and food needed to support the conversion to an industrial economy. The key period is the century from 1750 to 1850. A series of technological and managerial innovations made this burst of productivity possible, many if not all introduced into or developed in Britain prior to the crucial century. The period after 1750, however, sees the integration of these methods into a powerfully synergistic whole.
Driving forces for these developments were the expansion of national markets for crops and increasing monetarization of the rural economy. All of these processes were accompanied by and reinforced by marked social changes including the decline of relatively self-sufficient farmers and villages, marked changes in land tenure patterns, and the emergence of a tripartite rural social system of landowners, tenant farmers, and a large body of landless laborers. Many of these processes were in train prior to 1750 but the period after that sees an acceleration of social change.
Overton is focused on Britain but surely this story has general implications.

Rating:
Summary: A work of economic history
Review: This book helps one to understand what your Ag Labs were going through during this period. The "Norfolk Four Course" crop rotation and the enclosure movement are given prominence in explaining how Britain broke out of the Malthusian trap.

Rating:
Summary: A work of economic history
Review: This book helps one to understand what your Ag Labs were going through during this period. The "Norfolk Four Course" crop rotation and the enclosure movement are given prominence in explaining how Britain broke out of the Malthusian trap.