Full Description
The story told by The Persistence of Subsistence Agriculture begins 8,000 years ago as humans began using the land and weather to provide themselves with food, housing, and clothing. Productive farmers took care of most daily needs within the small conservative world in which they lived. This world organized around small-scale subsistence farming is ending as the ancient world of farmers has given away to that dominated by the modern marketplace. This book is about how the modern market world transformed these remote agricultural farmers. Waters uses diverse examples to illustrate how the modern market economy captured persistent subsistence farmers and forever altered life in 18th century Scotland, 19th century United States, 20th century Tanzania, and indeed, the entire modern world.
Contents
Part 1 The Persistence of SubsistenceMarketplace Chapter 2 Why Subsistence Peasants Are Important Chapter 3 Theoretical Overview: Life Beneath the Level of the Marketplace Chapter 4 Pre-industrial Scotland, or How Adam Smith Got Workers into His Pin Factory Part 5 The Persistence of the Subsistence Peasant from the Eighteenth to the Twenty-first Century Chapter 6 America's Triumphant Subsistence Peasantry 1620-1820, or How Daniel Boone Ran from Ben Franklin's Shopkeepers Chapter 7 Squatting, Pre-emption, and Nowhere Left to Run: An Ascendant Market Catches Pa Ingalls Chapter 8 Modern Tanzania and the Long Triumph of Subsistence Farmers Chapter 9 The Persistent Modern Tanzanian Subsistent Peasant Part 10 Conclusions: Challenging Development Orthodoxies Chapter 11 Theoretical Implications: Understanding Economic Growth as a Risky and Recurrent Process Chapter 12 Modern Development and Subsistence Peasantry
