Starting from the hypothesis that states were crucial as agents of modernisation, this book explores why, how and with what results European states have striven to transform their agricultural sectors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Modernising agriculture has increasingly meant emulating the new organisational models of manufacturing industry. But since agriculture continues to rely heavily on living resources (plants and animals), the results of modernising farming have often differed significantly from the manufacturing sector. Modernised agriculture, in other words, is something quite different than simply industrialised agriculture.

Ranging from the Iberian Peninsula to Hungary and from Greece to England, the chapters of this book deal with four principal questions: Why have state elites, and their civil society allies chosen to modernise agriculture? What have they understood by agricultural modernization ? What sort of power resources have they taken as necessary for effective modernisation? And what were the consequences of the pursuit of modernising policies for the farming population and for agriculture?

 

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Paul BRASSLEY, University of Exeter, United Kingdom

Daniel FLÜCKIGER, Archives of Rural History/University of Bern, Switzerland

Dulce FREIRE,  Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal

Fritz Georg VON GRAEVENITZ, European University Institute, Florence, Italy

Jonathan HARWOOD, University of Manchester, United Kingdom

Christian HOFFMANN, European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano, Italy

Niek KONING, Wageningen University, Netherlands

Daniel LANERO TÄBOAS, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Ernst LANGTHALER, Institute of Rural History, St. Pölten, Austria

Peter MOSER, Archives of Rural History, Bern, Switzerland

Socrates D. PETMEZAS Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH and University of Crete, Rethymno, Greece

Kathrin RENNER, European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano, Italy

Flavio V. RUFFIN, Landesagentur für Umwelt, Autonome Provinz Bozen, Italy

Gloria SANZ LAFUENTE, Universidad Publica de Navarra, Spain

Serge SCHMITZ, University of Liege, Belgium

Anton SCHUURMAN, Wageningen University, Netherlands

Thomas STREIFENEDER, European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano, Italy

Zsuzsanna VARGA, Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary  

Tony VARLEY, National University of Ireland, Galway