The Origins of English Individualism
Douban
The Family Property and Social Transition
Alan Macfarlane
résumé
The Origins of English Individualism is about the nature of English society during the five centuries leading up to the Industrial Revolution, and the crucial differences between England and other European nations. Drawing upon detailed studies of English parishes and a growing number of other intensive local studies, as well as diaries, legal treatises and contemporary foreign sources, the author examines the framework of change in England. He suggests that there has been a basic misrepresentation of English history and that this has considerable implications both for our understanding of modern British and American society, and for current theories concerning the preconditions of industrialization.
contents
Apologies and acknowledgements
Abbreviations and conventions
List of abbreviated titles
Introduction
1 The nature of a peasant society
2 When England ceased to be a peasant society: Marx, Weber and the historians
3 English economy and society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
4 Ownership in England from 1350 to 1750
5 Ownership in England from 1200 to 1349
6 English economy and society in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries
7 England in perspective
8 Some implications
Postscript
List of manuscript sources
Index
