Population Growth and Agrarian Change An Historical Perspective [Paperback]

This book, first published in 1980, suggests some ways of looking at the interrelationships between population growth and agrarian change.This book, first published in 1980, suggests some ways of looking at the interrelationships between population growth and agrarian change, and uses these approaches to consider the demographic and agrarian problems of various parts of Europe in the past  in the fourteenth century, the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and in the early nineteenth century.This book, first published in 1980, suggests some ways of looking at the interrelationships between population growth and agrarian change, and uses these approaches to consider the demographic and agrarian problems of various parts of Europe in the past  in the fourteenth century, the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and in the early nineteenth century.Since the 1950s much attention has been paid to the effect of rapid population growth on the rural societies of the Third World. Yet it is often forgotten that Europe faced similar problems in the past. This book, first published in 1980, suggests some ways of looking at the interrelationships between population growth and agrarian change, and uses these approaches to consider the demographic and agrarian problems of various parts of Europe in the past  in the fourteenth century, the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and in the early nineteenth century. These places are then compared with rural societies in the developing world at the present time.1. Introduction; Part I. Methodology: 2. Overpopulation: definition and measurement; 3. The symptoms of overpopulation in agrarian communities; 4. The possibilities of increased output in pre-industrial societies; 5. Demographic adjustments to population growth; Part II. Malthus Justified: 6. European population in the long run; 7. Western Europe in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries: a case of overpopulation?; 8. England in the sixteenth and seventlóM