Rural history
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In
historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...
, rural history is a field of study focusing on the history of societies in
rural area In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are descri ...
s. At its inception, the field was based on the
economic history Economic history is the academic learning of economies or economic events of the past. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the application of economic theory to historical situations and ins ...
of agriculture. Since the 1980s it has become increasingly influenced by
social history Social history, often called the new social history, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in his ...
and has diverged from the economic and technological focuses of " agricultural history". It can be considered a counterpart to
urban history Urban history is a field of history that examines the historical nature of cities and towns, and the process of urbanization. The approach is often multidisciplinary, crossing boundaries into fields like social history, architectural history, urb ...
. A number of
academic journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and d ...
s and
learned societies A learned society (; also learned academy, scholarly society, or academic association) is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline, profession, or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and science. Membership may ...
exist to promote rural history.


History

Rural history emerged as a distinct discipline from agricultural history in the 1980s and was inspired by the French ''Annales'' school which favoured integrating economic, social and political history. Initially focused predominantly on the social history of rural life and later became increasingly interested in
cultural history Cultural history combines the approaches of anthropology and history to examine popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past matter, encompassing the ...
. In
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, the study of rural history is supported by the European Rural History Organisation (ERHO).


National studies


Britain

Burchardt (2007) evaluates the state of English rural history and focuses on an "orthodox" school dealing chiefly with the economic history of agriculture. The orthodox historians made "impressive progress" in quantifying and explaining the growth of output and productivity since the agricultural revolution. A challenge came from a dissident tradition that looked chiefly at the negative social costs of agricultural progress, especially enclosure. In the late 20th century there arose a new school, associated with the journal ''Rural History''. Led by
Alun Howkins Alun Howkins (8 August 1947 – 12 July 2018) was an English social historian, specialising in the history of English rural society. Regarded as a leading historian of the English countryside and its working class, Howkins was a professor of histor ...
, it links rural Britain to a wider social history. Burchardt calls for a new countryside history, paying more attention to the cultural and representational aspects that shaped 20th-century rural life.


United States

In the U.S. most rural history has focused on the South—overwhelmingly rural until the 1950s—but there is a "new rural history" of the North as well. Instead of becoming agrarian capitalists, farmers held onto preindustrial capitalist values emphasizing family and community. Rural areas maintained population stability; kinship ties determined rural immigrant settlement and community structures; and the defeminization of farm work encouraged the rural version of the "women's sphere." These findings strongly contrast with those in the old frontier history as well as those found in the new urban history. Modernization came in the 20th century, with the arrival of mechanization, the model T, and the agricultural agent—as well as radio.


France

Rural history has been a major specialty of French scholars since the 1920s, thanks especially to the central role of the Annales School. Its journal ''Annales'' focuses attention on the synthesizing of historical patterns identified from social, economic, and cultural history, statistics, medical reports, family studies, and even psychoanalysis.Peter Burke, ''The French Historical Revolution: The Annales School 1929–89'' (1990)


Specialised journals

A number of
academic journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and d ...
s exist with a specific focus on rural history. These include: *'' Agricultural History'' (1927–). United States. *'' Agricultural History Review. A Journal of Agricultural and Rural History'' (1953–). United Kingdom. *''
Histoire & Sociétés Rurales ''Histoire & Sociétés Rurales'' (''History and Rural Societies'') is an academic journal dedicated to rural history from prehistory Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the firs ...
'' (1990–). France. *'' Rural History. Economy, Society, Culture.'' (1990–). United Kingdom.


Bibliography

* Bloch, Mark. ''French Rural History: An Essay on Its Basic Characteristics'' (1966
excerpt and text search
* Blum, Jerome. ''The End of the Old Order in Rural Europe'' (1978) 505pp * Brenner, Robert. "Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe". ''Past and Present'' 70 (1976), pp. 30–74, influential statement of the controversial "Brenner thesis" that smallholding peasants had strong property rights and had little incentive to give up traditional technology or go beyond local markets, and thus no incentive toward capitalism * Cipolla, C. M. ''Before the Industrial Revolution. European Society and Economy, 1000-1700'' (2nd ed. 1976) * Federico, Giovanni. ''Feeding the World: An Economic History of World Agriculture, 1800-2000.'' (2005). 388 pp.
excerpt and text search
* Forster, R, and O. Ranum, eds. ''Rural Society in France. Selections from the Annales Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations'' (1977). * Goody, Jack, Joan Thirsk, and E. P. Thompson, eds. ''Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in Western Europe, 1200-1800'' (1976). * Gras, Norman. ''A history of agriculture in Europe and America,'' (1925)
online edition
* Herr, Richard, ed. ''Themes in Rural History of the Western World'' (1993) (Henry a Wallace Series on Agricultural History and Rural Studies
excerpt and text search
* Hoffmann; Richard C. ''Land, Liberties, and Lordship in a Late Medieval Countryside: Agrarian Structures and Change in the Duchy of Wroclaw'' (1989), Medieval Polan
online edition
* LeRoy Ladurie, E. ''The Peasants of Languedoc'' (1974), Medieval France * Ludden, David. ''An Agrarian History of South Asia'' (1999
online edition
* Vinje, Victor Condorcet. ''The Versatile Farmers of the North; The Struggle of Norwegian Yeomen for Economic Reforms and Political Power, 1750-1814'' (2014) Nisus Publications.


Britain

* Butlin, R. A. ''The Transformation of Rural England, c. 1580-1800: A Study in Historical Geography'' (1982) * Hanawalt, Barbara A. ''The Ties That Bound. Peasant Families in Medieval England'' (1986) * Hilton, R. H. ''The English Peasantry in the Later Middle Ages'' (1975). *
Howkins, Alun Alun Howkins (8 August 1947 – 12 July 2018) was an English social historian, specialising in the history of English rural society. Regarded as a leading historian of the English countryside and its working class, Howkins was a professor of histor ...
. ''Reshaping Rural England 1850-1925'' (1992) * Howkins, Alun. ''The Death of Rural England: A Social History of the Countryside since 1900'' (2003
online edition
* Kussmaul, Anne. ''Servants in Husbandry in Early Modern England'' (1981) * Mingay, G. E., ed. ''The Victorian Countryside'' (2 vol 1981) * Taylor, Christopher. ''Village and Farmstead. A History of Rural Settlement in England'' (1983).


United States

* ''Cyclopedia of American agriculture; a popular survey of agricultural conditions,'' ed by L. H. Bailey, 4 vol 1907-1909
online edition
highly useful compendium * Baron, Hal S. ''Mixed Harvest: The Second Great Transformation in the Rural North, 1870-1930'' (1997
online edition
* Bowers, William L. ''The Country Life Movement in America, 1900-1920'' (1974). * Brunner, Edmund de Schweinitz. ''Rural social trends'' (1933
online edition
* Danbom, David B. ''Born in the Country: A History of Rural America'' (1995) * Gjerde, Jon. ''The Minds of the West: Ethnocultural Evolution in the Rural Middle West, 1830-1917'' (1997) * Goreham, Gary A. ''Encyclopedia of Rural America'' (2 vol 1997); 438pp; 232 essays by experts on arts, business, community development, economics, education, environmental issues, family, labor, quality of life, recreation, and sports. * Hurt, Douglas, ed. ''The Rural South Since World War II'' (1998) * Kirby, Jack Temple. ''Rural Worlds Lost: The American South 1920-1960'' (1987) * Kulikoff; Allan. ''From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers'' (2000
online edition
* Lauck, Jon. "'The Silent Artillery of Time': Understanding Social Change in the Rural Midwest," ''Great Plains Quarterly'' 19 (Fall 1999) * Schafer, Joseph. ''The social history of American agriculture'' (1936
online edition
* Weeden, William Babcock. ''Economic and Social History of New England, 1620-1789'' (1891) 964 pages
online edition
;Archival collections


Netherlands and Belgium

Curtis, D.,
Trends in rural social and economic history of the pre-industrial Low Countries: recent themes and ideas in journals and books of the past five years (2007-2013)
, review essay in '' BMGN: Low Countries Historical Review'' 128.3 (2013) 60-95.


Historiography

* Alfonso, Isabel, ed. ''The Rural History of Medieval European Societies. Trends and Perspectives'', Turnhout: Brepols (The Medieval Countryside, 1), 2007. * Atack, Jeremy. "A Nineteenth-century Resource for Agricultural History Research in the Twenty-first Century." ''Agricultural History'' 2004 78(4): 389-412. Fulltext: in University of California Journals and Ebsco. On a large computerized database of individual American farmers from manuscript census. * Blanke, David. “Consumer Choice, Agency, and New Directions in Rural History,” ''Agricultural History'' 81#2 (Spring 2007), 182-203. * Bogue, Allan G. "Tilling Agricultural History with Paul Wallace Gates and James C. Malin." ''Agricultural History'' 2006 80(4): 436-460. Fulltext: in Ebsco * Burchardt, Jeremy. "Agricultural History, Rural History, or Countryside History?" ''Historical Journal'' 2007 50(2): 465-481. * Burton, Vernon O. "Reaping What We Sow: Community and Rural History," ''Agricultural History,'' Fall 2002, Vol. 76 Issue 4, pp 630–5
in JSTOR
* Dyer, C. "The Past, the Present and the Future in Medieval Rural History". ''Rural History: Economy, Society, Culture'' 1:1 (1990), pp. 37–49. * Swierenga, Robert P. "Theoretical Perspectives on the New Rural History: From Environmentalism to Modernization,” ''Agricultural History'' 56#3 (July 1982): 495-502, focus on United States.


See also

*
Local history Local history is the study of history in a geographically local context, often concentrating on a relatively small local community. It incorporates cultural and social aspects of history. Local history is not merely national history writ small bu ...
*
Rural sociology Rural sociology is a field of sociology traditionally associated with the study of social structure and conflict in rural areas. It is an active academic field in much of the world, originating in the United States in the 1910s with close ties ...
*
Environmental history Environmental history is the study of human interaction with the natural world over time, emphasising the active role nature plays in influencing human affairs and vice versa. Environmental history first emerged in the United States out of th ...
*
Landscape history Landscape history is the study of the way in which humanity has changed the physical appearance of the environment – both present and past. It is sometimes referred to as landscape archaeology. It was first recognised as a separate area of stud ...


References


Bibliography

*{{cite journal, last=Burchardt, first=Jeremy, title=Agricultural History, Rural History, or Countryside History?, journal=The Historical Journal, volume=50, issue=2, date=2007, pages=465–481, doi=10.1017/S0018246X07006152, jstor=4140139, s2cid=162545263


External links


European Rural History Organisation (EURHO)

Agricultural History Society

Rural History Confederation (RHC), an association of nineteen U.S. museums and historic sites

Institute of Rural History, Austria
History of agriculture Social history Fields of history