Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain, 1470-1750

The New Economic History of Britain

by Keith Wrightson

This important new book, widely praised in hardcover (Yale UP) redefines the economic history of early modern Britain for a new generation of readers. Wrightson writes evocatively about the basic institutions and relationships of economic life, tracing the process of change, and examining how these changes affected men, women and children at all social levels. Novel in its structure, scope, and emphasis on the lived experience of the period, the book vividly demonstrates the gains and costs of economic change.

Genres: History, Economics, Nonfiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published September 10, 2000

About the author

Keith E. Wrightson, Randolph W. Townsend Jr. Professor of History, is a scholar of early modern British history. His books, which have been credited for their novel approach to English social and cultural history, include Poverty and Piety in an English Village: Terling, 1525-1700 (co-authored with David Levine), The Making of an Industrial Society. Whickham 1560-1765 (also with Levine), English Society, 1580-1680 and Earthly Necessities. Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain. He is a contributing editor of The Illustrated Dictionary of British History and co-editor of The World We Have Gained: Histories of Population and Social Structure. Essays Presented to Peter Laslett on His 70th Birthday. Wrightson has also contributed chapters to numerous books.

Wrightson earned his BA, MA and PhD from Cambridge University and began his teaching career at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, where he was a lecturer in modern history 1975-1984. He returned to Cambridge in 1984, serving as the University Lecturer in History and later as director of studies in history and a reader in English social history. He became a full professor of social history there in 1998 and joined the Yale faculty a year later.

The historian has held visiting professorships at the University of Alberta and the University of Toronto, among others, and has been an invited lecturer at universities and in conferences throughout Europe, Canada, Australia, China, Russia and the United States. He was the James Ford Special Lecturer at the University of Oxford in 1993 and presented the British Academy's Raleigh Lecture in the fall of 2005.

At Yale, Wrightson has served as director of undergraduate studies in history and has chaired the Renaissance Studies Program. He has also served on a number of University advisory boards.

In 2001, Wrightson was awarded the John Ben Snow Prize, presented by the North American Conference on British Studies. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the British Academy. He serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals.

Reviews

[Corey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thorough analysis of the British premodern transition from traditional to commercial. Copious detail, but genuinely interesting. Lot's of stories of real families and their struggles and successes navigating the changing landscape. Excellent analysis of the many ways social relationships changed. Extraordinarily well researched and documented. I was most surprised by the cooperative, communal nature of premodern village life. Also, fascinating was the ways in which wage earners, formerly farmers, fought to maintain a sense of independence in a dependent world, and how they built early union like relationships. All in all, an excellent introduction into another time so very different than our own.

[Gareth Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Admirably clear and concise account of the economic changes in the early modern period. With a clear focus on the household the work looks at the broad social changes that occurred. As a novice in this area, I found this an interesting, sometimes enthralling, account.

[Brian Gowthorpe · Rating 5 out of 5]

A scholarly book but very approachable. His overview of the historiography of the period was very helpful, providing context for the ideas of RH Tawney, which with Christopher Hill underlay much of my A-Level history syllabus. I was very interested to see how attitudes to money, land, work and finance shifted in the 16C.

Quite a lot of the Scottish context was familiar from Tom Devine’s The Scottish Clearances but it was good to have that reinforced. In England 70% of cultivable land had been enclosed by 1700, a process that had been pursued for at least 200 years. The medieval field strip system was distinctly inefficient.

The key message here is the 300 year shift from a predominantly rural, feudal society to one in which wage labour was much more usual and the middle classes represented almost a quarter of the population.

[John]

nonfiction,history

[Ted Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important, even fundamental subject. Well written and engaging.