Town and Country in Europe, 1300–1800. Edited by S. R. Epstein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xi, 343. $64.95.

Extract

Karl Marx put the relations of town and country at the core of the processes by which capitalism arose in Europe: division of labor, commercialization, formation of the bourgeois class, changing (power) relations of production, the whole lot. Today too, the student of emergent capitalism must focus on that nexus, even though to do so is to wrestle with some of the most enduring puzzles, as well as the complexities and varieties, of Europe's early modern age. The collection edited by S. R. Epstein adds to our knowledge of how these urban–rural relations evolved over much of Europe, though it will certainly not resolve the puzzles, nor lay bare the mechanisms, of the run-up to industrialization and sustained economic growth. More disappointing is the lack of comparative perspective, despite the editor's dutiful call for more of it.