Agricultural production has been the basic and single most important factor for the well-being of mankind since the Neolithic revolution. Insufficient agricultural output has led to deficient means of subsistence and sometimes even starvation, while rich harvests brought about plenty and prosperity.  Continuous increases in agricultural output have transformed whole societies and continents, bringing about radical changes in people’s lives and economic prospects.

This book is focused on measuring and explaining agricultural growth in Europe. For most countries statistics on agricultural production are either non-existing or shaky for the period up to the end of the nineteenth century. Consequently, researchers dealing with historical farming have been forced to put a lot of effort into reconstructing reliable data on inputs and outputs. The last decades have seen major progress, and new approaches to quantify and explain agricultural development have been adopted. The book is the result of these efforts and it encompasses estimations and explanations of European historical agriculture over time, from the ninth to the twentieth century, and over space, from the Iberian Peninsula to Scandinavia and from the British Isles to Russia.

 

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

John BECKETT, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom

Ernesto CLAR, University of Zaragoza, Spain

Giovanni FEDERICO, European University Institute, Florence, Italy

Helder Adegar FONSECA, University of Évora, Portugal

Merijn KNIBBE, Wageningen University, Netherlands

Frank KONERSMANN, Bielefeld University, Germany

José-Miguel LANA-BERASAIN, Public University of Navarre, Spain

Carol S. LEONARD, University of Oxford, United Kingdom

Mats OLSSON, Lund University, Sweden

Vicente PINILLA, University of Zaragoza, Spain

Jaime REIS, University of Lisbon, Portugal

Patrick SVENSSON, Lund University, Sweden

Michael TURNER, University of Hull, United Kingdom

Alexis WILKIN, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium