Agricultural Specialization and Rural Patterns of Development

The most commonly accepted idea is that specialization is a step forward because it allows farmers to become market-orientated and to escape from the discredited principle of autarky. This book intends to return to this question. Is specialization always a mono-activity? Is it always a great stride forward? Does it take the same form in traditional and contemporary economies? Those questions were asked to a group of European historians working from seventeenth to twentieth century, who gathered in the COST action A 35 from 2005 to 2009. If for some of them, specialization was a single activity (milk, wine, hops...), for many others it was based upon a set of activities which share the common aim of being market-oriented. Chronologically, specialization is not a linear process, nor is it irreversible: this can be observed during the Second World War in England and with the collapse of communism in Central Europe.