"This book follows the renovation of European economic history towards a more unified interpretation of sources of growth and stagnation. To better understand the diversity of patterns of growth, we need to look beyond the study of the industrialization of the core economies, and explore the...

Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- The agro-industrial roots of the US capitalist transition through state capacity building : 1830-1870 -- The end of slavery and southern agricultural class structure -- Farmer organizations : the rise and fall of populism -- State institutional capacity...

Issues surrounding agriculture have always had pride of place among academic research in economic history. Interest in agricultural issues does not seem to come into fashion, and then fade into the background only to return years later. Indeed, agriculture was so vital to the workings of...