Why read The Brenner Debate?

Book cover of The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe

Book description

Few historical issues have occasioned such discussion since at least the time of Marx as the transition from feudalism to capitalism in Western Europe. The Brenner Debate, which reprints from Past and Present various article in 1976, is a scholarly presentation of a variety of points of view, covering a…

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Topics

Europe

Genres

European history

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Brenner Debate as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Philip B. Minehan

Author

This book centers on historian Robert Brenner’s argument that the origins of capitalist production are to be found in changes that occurred in property relations in early modern English agriculture.

What led me to Brenner and his argument were my unanswered questions in the sociology of Third World development. His work then led me to more systematic and comprehensive insights about the problem of capitalism’s uneven development worldwide.

Brenner’s argument and its broad implications remain most persuasive and vital for a clear understanding of political economy and history from the early modern era to the present.

From Philip's list on modern world history and politics.