This is the first world history of peasants. Peasants in World History analyzes the multiple transformations of peasant life through history by focusing on three primary areas: the organization of peasant societies, their integration within wider societal structures, and the changing connections between local, regional and global processes. Peasants have been a vital component in human history over the last 10,000 years, with nearly one-third of the world's population still living a peasant lifestyle today. Their role as rural producers of ever-new surpluses instigated complex and often-opposing processes of social and spatial change throughout the world. Eric Vanhaute frames this social change in a story of evolving peasant frontiers. These frontiers provide a global comparative-historical lens to look at the social, economic and ecological changes within village-systems, agrarian empires and global capitalism. Bringing the story of the peasantry up through the modern period and looking to the future, the author offers a succinct overview with students in mind. This book is recommended reading to anyone interested in the history and future of peasantries and is a valuable addition to undergraduate and graduate courses in World History, Global Economic History, Global Studies and Rural Sociology.

This is the first world history of peasants. Peasants in World History analyzes the multiple transformations of peasant life through history by focusing on three primary areas: the organization of peasant societies, their integration within wider societal structures, and the changing connections between local, regional and global processes. Peasants have been a vital component in human history over the last 10,000 years, with nearly one-third of the world's population still living a peasant lifestyle today. Their role as rural producers of ever-new surpluses instigated complex and often-opposing processes of social and spatial change throughout the world. Eric Vanhaute frames this social change in a story of evolving peasant frontiers. These frontiers provide a global comparative-historical lens to look at the social, economic and ecological changes within village-systems, agrarian empires and global capitalism. Bringing the story of the peasantry up through the modern period and looking to the future, the author offers a succinct overview with students in mind. This book is recommended reading to anyone interested in the history and future of peasantries and is a valuable addition to undergraduate and graduate courses in World History, Global Economic History, Global Studies and Rural Sociology.

World History: An Introduction provides readers with the knowledge and tools necessary to understand the global historical perspective and how it can be used to shed light on both our past and our present. A concise and original guide to the concepts, methods, debates and contents of world history, it combines a thematic approach with a clear and ambitious focus. Each chapter traces connections with the past and the present to explore major questions in world history: How did humans evolve from an endangered species to the most successful of them all? How has nature shaped human history? How did agricultural societies push human history in a new direction? How has humankind organized itself in ever more complex administrative systems? How have we developed new religious and cultural patterns? How have the paths of 'The West' and 'The Rest' diverged over the last five centuries? How, at the same time, has the world become more interconnected and "globalized"? How is this world characterized by growing gaps in wealth, poverty and inequality? Sharp and accessible, Eric Vanhaute's introduction to this exciting field demonstrates that world history is more of a perspective than a single all-encompassing narrative: an instructive new way of seeing, thinking and doing. It is an essential resource for students of history in a global context.

World History: An Introduction provides readers with the knowledge and tools necessary to understand the global historical perspective and how it can be used to shed light on both our past and our present. A concise and original guide to the concepts, methods, debates and contents of world history, it combines a thematic approach with a clear and ambitious focus. Each chapter traces connections with the past and the present to explore major questions in world history: How did humans evolve from an endangered species to the most successful of them all? How has nature shaped human history? How did agricultural societies push human history in a new direction? How has humankind organized itself in ever more complex administrative systems? How have we developed new religious and cultural patterns? How have the paths of 'The West' and 'The Rest' diverged over the last five centuries? How, at the same time, has the world become more interconnected and "globalized"? How is this world characterized by growing gaps in wealth, poverty and inequality? Sharp and accessible, Eric Vanhaute's introduction to this exciting field demonstrates that world history is more of a perspective than a single all-encompassing narrative: an instructive new way of seeing, thinking and doing. It is an essential resource for students of history in a global context.