Rural societies are conventionally thought to be bound by tradition and resistant to change. But from the 18th century onwards many countries began to see the countryside as the basis of national prosperity, with a healthy and increasing population, and rising agricultural output fostering general economic growth. It became an objective of the State to encourage the trend, but also to exert social control on this major part of the population in order to civilize the rude peasantry and acquire their electoral support.

This book deals with the various aspects of rural life in which the State intervened: economic matters, such as property rights and market regulations; social questions, from moral concerns to demographic policy; and the key issue of rural education.

From Sweden to the Iberian Peninsula, the United Kingdom to Hungary, and from the eighteenth century to the twentieth, using both broad surveys and in-depth studies, with an extensive introduction written from a comparative perspective, an international group of historians (brought together by the COST network A35) for the first time examine the rural concerns of the state, both economic and social, in a comparative European context.

 

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Lars BEHRISCH, University of Bielefeld, Germany

Michel BOULET, ENESAD, Dijon, France

Paul BRASSLEY, Plymouth University, United Kingdom

Ernesto CLAR, University of Zaragoza, Spain

Jonathan HARWOOD, Manchester University, United Kingdom 

Andreas KULHAWY, Oldenburg University, Germany  

Gyôrgy KURUCZ, Baiassi Institute Budapest, Hungary

 Leen VAN MOLLE, Leuwen University, Belgium

Juan PAN-MONTOJO, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain  

Anders NILSSON, Lund University, Sweden

Rossano PAZZAGLI, Università del Molise, Italy

Socrates PETMEZAS, University of Crete, Greece

Lars PETTERSSON, Lund University, Sweden

Noelle PLACK, Newman University College Birmingham, United Kingdom

Nadine VIVIER, Université du Maine,  France