The Local Origins of Modern Society: Gloucestershire 1500-1800

Explanations of the rise of industrial capitalism usually focus on urban centers, yet its origins lie in the late middle ages, in the flight of manufacturing industry from towns to rural districts. Habitually conceived and justified as a system of poor relief for landless households, rural industry created new social relations, pastoral disciplines, ideologies, and forms of communication. Through a series of sharply focused studies spanning three centuries, David Rollison explores the rise of capitalist manufacturing in the English countryside and the revolution in consciousness that accompanied it. Combining the empiricism of English historiography with the rationalism of Annales, The Local Origins of Modern Society argues that the explosive implications of the rise of rural industry altered the communal, cultural, and social contexts of people's lives. Using localized case studies, Rollison uses significant detail in providing a subtle and innovative view of Englishcultural identities in the early modern period.