The Agrarian History of Sweden

Comprehensive and concise, this account details the agrarian history of Sweden - as it is defined by its present national borders - from the Neolithic times to present day. Key historical concepts and events are discussed, including the introduction of planned agriculture alongside the domestication of animals; the feudal relationships and interactions between men and women, various age groups, and different social classes during the Middle Ages; the changes brought about by industrialism and the development of political democracy; the effects of World Wars I and II; and Sweden's inclusion in the European Union in 1995. This study also examines the interdependence between agriculture and other industries as well as the relationship between agriculture and politics on a local, regional, national, and international level.

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• CHAPTER 1 - Early farming households
  • Archaeology and agrarian history
  • Silent and different people
  • The European background
  • Complex change
  • Changes to farms
  • The household
  • The division of labour
  • Thinking agriculturally
  • Ritual
  • Life and death
  • The eternal household
  • Change
• CHAPTER 2 - Agriculture in Sweden
  • The emergence of mixed farming
  • Intensification and technological change, AD 200–600
  • Late Iron Age expansion, AD 700–1000
• CHAPTER 3 - Farming and feudalism
  • New sources for a new era
  • A feudal society
  • Expansion and crisis, 1000–1450
  • Agricultural technology
  • Livestock farming
  • Farms and estates
  • A typical farm
  • The village community
  • Taxation and the nobility
  • Transformation in the Late Middle Ages
  • State feudalism
  • Sixteenth-century expansion, seventeenth-century stagnation
  • Living standards and total production
  • Small advances in agrarian technology
  • Regional specialization–the example of oxen
  • Grain production
  • The rise of the war economy
  • The collapse of the war economy
• CHAPTER 4 - The agricultural revolution in Sweden
  • Geography and settlement
  • Landholding
  • Arable and livestock farming
  • Peasant-farmer households and a diversified peasant-farmer economy
  • Rural crafts and trade
  • The peasant-farmers gain ground
  • An expanding market economy
  • The growth of the agrarian proletariat
  • Land clearance and a food supply crisis, 1700–1800
  • Land reform
  • The dawn of mechanization and increased demand for capital
  • Liberal reform–and the state steps in
  • Some conclusions
• CHAPTER 5 - Agriculture in industrial society
  • Agriculture and the market in the industrial national economy
  • Landownership and land use
  • The ‘flight’ from agriculture
  • Market signals and the transformation of cultivation
  • Animal husbandry, animal production
  • Technological change
  • The men and women of agriculture
  • Farmers, politics, and the organization of farmers’ interests
• CHAPTER 6 - The tension between modernity and reality
  • A country of small farms
  • The political route to modern agriculture
  • Agriculture, pure and simple
  • Town and country
  • Neighbourhood co-operation redoubled
  • The industrial ideals of the 1960s
  • Families, businesses, and farmers
  • The repression of women
  • Town mores, country mores
  • Between ideal and reality
  • Stronger farming organizations
  • Supra-national agricultural policy
  • Small-scale and large-scale farming in a new age
  • Combined contract farming
  • Present-day neighbourhood co-operation
  • Town and country
  • Towards the future
• CHAPTER 7 - Swedish agrarian history –the wider view
  • In Northern climes
  • The continuous reconquest of northern Europe’s frontier
  • European mixed farming
  • The importance of implements
  • Expansion and stagnation
  • Social systems
  • The role of dreams
• Notes
• Statistical appendix
• Bibliography