This book is the first available survey of English agriculture between 1500 and 1850. It combines new evidence with recent findings from the specialist literature, to argue that the agricultural revolution took place in the century after 1750. Taking a broad view of agrarian change, the author begins with a description of sixteenth-century farming and an analysis of its regional structure. He then argues that the agricultural revolution consisted of two related transformations. The first was a transformation in output and productivity brought about by a complex set of changes in farming practice. The second was a transformation of the agrarian economy and society, including a series of related developments in marketing, landholding, field systems, property rights, enclosure and social relations. Written specifically for students, this book will be invaluable to anyone studying English economic and social history, or the history of agriculture.

First Published in 1967. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Addressing one of the most debated revolutions in the history of our species, the change from hunting and gathering to farming, this title takes a global view, and integrates an array of information from archaeology and many other disciplines, including anthropology, botany, climatology, genetics, linguistics, and zoology.

First modern biography of Thomas William Coke, first earl of Leicester, who revolutionised agricultural practices and became an outspoken critic of Britain's war against America over independence.

'Rigorously intelligent... impressive detailed reconstruction of the material circumstances of the rural poor... This is a bold work that represents economic history at its best.' -The Agricultural History Review'Jane Whittle's excellent monograph manages to combine a detailed knowledge of local society and a mastery of a range of difficult primary sources with an awareness of wider theoretical issues and historiographical debates about the transition to capitalism... A model of logical structure and clarity of argument.' -Sixteenth Century Journal'Whittle maintains a commendable hold on both her arguments and the evidence which she elucidates. There are separate thematic introductions, interim summaries, and straightforward conclusions to each section. The unsophisticated reader (and reviewer) is seldom lost and the book in fact provides and excellent guide, not merely to its own theme but to the ways in which real research can be done on the big questions.' -Philip Morgan, H-AlbionThis is an important new scholarly study of the roots of capitalism. Dr Whittle intelligently relates ideas of peasant society and capitalism to a local study of north-east Norfolk, a county that was to become one of the crucibles of the so-called agrarian revolution. She uses the rich variety of historical sources produced by this precocious commercialized locality to examine a wide range of topics and draw some significant conclusions.

First Published in 2005. This book argues that the agricultural revolution took place in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and not in the eighteenth and nineteenth.

First Published in 2005. This book argues that the agricultural revolution took place in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and not in the eighteenth and nineteenth.