About the Book
Informed and containing incisive analysis, this book firmly places European agricultural history back at the centre stage.
Bringing together a wealth of international scholars, who are experts in the area, to provide an authoritative and comprehensive analysis it answers a range of fundamental and important questions. These include:
- What were the main cycles of agricultural output growth since 1870?
- What was the impact in output of the grain invasion and the growth of export markets?
- How did agriculture react to protection in the interwar period?
- What was the role of agriculture during the European golden age?
- What happened to the growth of labour force and labour participation rates?
- How did investment evolve and how did its composition change?
- How did labour, capital and total factor productivity perform?
- How does this compare to what happened in the USA?
With analyses of more than ten European countries and introductory and concluding chapters that compare and contrast the European experience with that of North America, this volume is key reading for students of agriculture, development economics and economics history.
Whilst many books on the European economy have focused on the analysis of its industrial sectors, this book draws attention to the often ignored contribution made by the development of European agriculture over the past two centuries. In doing so, the authors adopt a revisionist perspective on the subject, addressing the lack of coherent study of the agricultural sector and reassessing old theories about the links between agricultural and economic development.
In focusing on those countries which by 1870 still had a large agricultural sector, namely, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, The Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Greece and Turkey, this book determines the role of the agricultural sector in the economic development of Europe. These chapters demonstrate how the rate of development in the agricultural sector depended on specific industrial, political and market conditions; the diversity of ways and timings through which transformation was achieved is also considered.