Agricultural Economists in Early Twentieth-Century Italy describes how Italian agricultural economists collected information about the economy of Italy, between the Giolittian and the Fascist era. The book carefully describes three main forms of economic observation: enquiries, statistics, and farm surveys. For each of these forms of observation, the main participants to the investigation are discussed with their respective agendas, alongside the purposes of the investigation, and its practical constraints. This work introduces the concept of "stakeholder statistics", and stresses the two-way relation between the observer and the observed in the co-production of observational knowledge. Practices of observation developed together with agricultural economics as a discipline and a profession. The study of forms of investigation therefore shed light on the constitution of a coherent and self-conscious group of agricultural economists in Italy, and the scientific and methodological alliances they forged with agricultural economists elsewhere in Europe. Thanks to ambitious research projects, Ghino Valenti in the Giolittian period, and Arrigo Serpieri, after the First World War, led the transformation of Italian agricultural economists from agents of estate owners, to social and economic experts in the service of the Italian state. The group of agricultural economists who gathered around Serpieri played an important role in supplying the ideology of the agricultural elites with economic content, especially after the First World War, along lines that resemble the development of agrarian ideologies in other countries of Central Europe. This work discusses how observation entered the political debate on agricultural policies of the Fascist regime, namely the so-called Ruralismo.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, agricultural practices and rural livelihoods were challenged by changes such as commercialization, intensified global trade, and rapid urbanization. Planting Seeds of Knowledge studies the relationship between these agricultural changes and knowledge-making through a transnational lens. Spanning exchanges between different parts of Europe, North and South America, the Indian subcontinent, and Africa, the wide-reaching contributions to this volume reform current historiography to show how local experiences redefined global practice.

What role did the agricultural sector play in the economic crash of 1929? Taking evidence from country cases across Europe and the Americas, this edited volume explores short-, medium- and long- term perspectives on the primary sector. The monograph brings together the voices of an international panel of contributors who examine issues such as falling prices, industrial production, unemployment and the stagnation of aggregate demand. Together, they frame the interwar period as a pivotal turning point in the decline of subsistence agriculture and the growth of agricultural subsidies, which remain a key policy tool in many economies today. This illuminating book will be of interest to advanced students and researchers in economic history, agricultural history, globalization and economic development.

WINNER of the British Agricultural History Society's 2022 Thirsk Prize WINNER of the 2022 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award An investigation into farming practices throughout a period of seismic change.