The distinction between 'capitalism from above' and 'capitalism from below' is important in the analysis of the agrarian question in poor countries. The 'Prussian path' and the 'American path' are here examined, against existing historical scholarship. Their unfolding, from their earliest roots to the point of final 'agrarian transition' in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is considered. The dialectic between social relations and productive forces, mediated as it was by the state, is treated and the implications for capitalist industrialisation scrutinised.

In Indiana through Tradition and Change: A History of the Hoosier State and Its People, 1920–1945 (vol. 5, History of Indiana Series), author James H. Madison covers Indiana during the period between World War I and World War II. Madison follows the generally topical organization set by previous volumes in the series, with initial chapters devoted to politics and later chapters to social, economic, and cultural questions. The last chapter provides an overview of the home front during World War II. Each chapter is intended to stand alone, but a fuller understanding of subjects and themes treated in any one chapter will result from a reading of the whole book. The book includes a bibliography, notes, and index.

Throughout history, farm families have shared work and equipment with their neighbours to complete labour-intensive, time-sensitive, and time-consuming tasks. They benefitted materially and socially from these voluntary, flexible, loosely structured networks of reciprocal assistance, making neighbourliness a vital but overlooked aspect of agricultural change. Being Neighbours takes us into the heart of neighbourhood – the set of people near and surrounding the family – through an examination of work bees in southern Ontario from 1830 to 1960. The bee was a special event where people gathered to work on a neighbour’s farm like bees in a hive for a wide variety of purposes, including barn raising, logging, threshing, quilting, turkey plucking, and apple paring. Drawing on the diaries of over one hundred men and women, Catharine Wilson takes readers into families’ daily lives, the intricacies of their labour exchange, and their workways, feasts, and hospitality. Through the prism of the bee and a close reading of the diaries, she uncovers the subtle social politics of mutual dependency, the expectations neighbours had of each other, and their ways of managing conflict and crisis. This book adds to the literature on cooperative work that focuses on evaluating its economic efficiency and complicates histories of capitalism that place communal values at odds with market orientation. Beautifully written, engaging, and richly detailed and illustrated, Being Neighbours reveals the visceral textures of rural life.

Includes entries for maps and atlases.