Origins of English Individualism

Alan Macfarlane is Reader in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of King's College.

• Apologies and acknowledgements viiiAbbreviations and conventions xList of abbreviated titles xiIntroduction 11 The nature of a peasant society 72 When England ceased to be a peasant society: Marx, Weber and the historians 343 English economy and society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 624 Ownership in England from 1350 to 1750 805 Ownership in England from 1200 to 1349 1026 English economy and society in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries 1317 England in perspective 1658 Some implications 189Postscript 204List of manuscript sources 207Index 210

"Historians are said to be moving back towards the idea of an enduring national identity. Alan Macfarlane wrote a paradigm-busting book back in the late 1970s, The Origins of English Individualism. That must have taken courage considering the sort of a decade it was ... A brilliant analysis."The Independent