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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2009

Govind P. Sreenivasan
Affiliation:
Brandeis University, Massachusetts
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Summary

The specter haunting the historiography of early modern Europe is the specter of transition. To be sure, the relatively recent designation of the period c. 1450–c. 1750 as an era unto itself represented multiple intellectual currents, in the first instance a rising interest in social and economic (as opposed to religious and political) questions. At the same time, however, the definition of these centuries as the decisive and traumatic passage from a medieval to a modern world generated a literature pervaded by themes of crisis and revolution (agricultural, commercial, financial, military, scientific, etc.), culminating in a breakthrough variously defined as the beginnings of industrialization, the end of the economic ancien régime, or the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Of course, it was always recognized that economic growth was hardly a universal experience in early modern Europe, but this was accounted for by labeling some parts of the continent (the Mediterranean in general and Spain in particular) as examples of failed transitions and others (northwest Europe in general and England and the Netherlands in particular) as successes. Outcomes were bound to vary, it was felt, in such a wide-ranging struggle between the forces of growth and change and traditional social and economic limits.

Over time, the transitional narrative of early modern social history has lost much of its initial coherence. First and foremost, fifty years of research have forced historians to acknowledge that the performance of the early modern European economy as a whole was sluggish at best.

Type
Chapter
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The Peasants of Ottobeuren, 1487–1726
A Rural Society in Early Modern Europe
, pp. 1 - 8
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

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  • Introduction
  • Govind P. Sreenivasan, Brandeis University, Massachusetts
  • Book: The Peasants of Ottobeuren, 1487–1726
  • Online publication: 21 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511496943.004
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  • Introduction
  • Govind P. Sreenivasan, Brandeis University, Massachusetts
  • Book: The Peasants of Ottobeuren, 1487–1726
  • Online publication: 21 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511496943.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Govind P. Sreenivasan, Brandeis University, Massachusetts
  • Book: The Peasants of Ottobeuren, 1487–1726
  • Online publication: 21 July 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511496943.004
Available formats
×