Week 2 suggested essay topic:

Do different patterns of land tenure explain England's advantage over France in agricultural productivity?

A related topic, which unfortunately lacks a French-British comparative aspect, could be an evaluation of the Marxian claim that English enclosures were about expropriation as much as efficiency. E.P. Thompson wrote "Enclosure (when all the sophistications are allowed for) was a plain enough case of class robbery, played according to fair rules of property and law laid down by a Parliament of property-owners and lawyers." One could find lots of quotes like that.

Allen, Robert, "Agriculture During the Industrial Revolution, 1700-1850," CEHMB 1st ed., vol. I, ch. 4, pp. 96-116.

---, "Economic Structure and Agricultural Productivity in Europe, 1300-1800," EREH, vol. 4 (2000), pp. 1-25.

---, "Tracking the Agricultural Revolution in England," EHR, vol. 52 (1999), pp. 209-235.

--- , and Cormac O'Grada, "On the Road Again with Arthur Young: English, Irish and French Agriculture during the Industrial Revolution," JEH, vol. 48 (1988), pp. 93-116.

Brenner, R. "Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe," reprinted in T. Aston and C. Philpin (eds.), The Brenner Debate (Cambridge: CUP, 1985), pp. 10-63.

Clark, Greg, "Commons Sense: Common Property Rights, Efficiency, and Institutional Change," JEH, vol. 58 (1998), pp. 73-102. Argues against importance of enclosures.

Crafts, N. F. R., and C. Knick Harley, "Precocious British Industrialisation: A General Equilibrium Perspective", Ch. 4 in Exceptionalism and Industrialisation: Britain and its European Rivals, 1688-1815, Leandro Prados de la Escosura, ed. (Cambridge: CUP, 2004). Also available in working paper form, should be downloadable.

Grantham, George, "The Persistence of Open-Field Farming in 19th Century France", JEH, vol. 40 (1980), pp. 515-31. Argues that in 19c non-trivial benefits to enclosure weren't realised due to a legislative framework made it difficult, with political considerations keeping the laws in place.

--- , "Agricultural Supply during the Industrial Revolution: French Evidence and European Implications," JEH, vol. 49 (1989), pp. 43-72.

--- , "The French Cliometric Revolution," EREH, vol 1 (1997), pp. 353-405.

Hoffman, Philip, "Land Rents and Agricultural Productivity: The Paris Basin, 1450-1789," JEH, vol. 51 (1991), pp. 771-805.

--- . Growth in a Traditional Society. The French Countryside, 1450-1815. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1996. Chs. 1-3 are a very readable and interesting introduction. Ch. 4 is about the evidence in the JEH article cited above.

McCloskey, D., "The Enclosure of Open Fields: Preface to a Study of Its Impact on Efficiency of English Agriculture in the 18th Century," JEH, vol. 32 (1972), pp. 15-35.

O'Brien, Patrick K., "Path Dependency, or Why Britain Became Industrialised and Urbanised Long Before France," EHR, vol. 49 (1996), pp. 213-49.

--- , and Caglar Keyder. Economic Growth in Britain and France. Ch. 5, pp. 102-145.

Root, Hilton Peasant and King in Burgundy. Agrarian Foundations of French Absolutism. Berkeley CA: U. of California Press, 1987. Develops the idea that the Crown strengthened communal village institutions for fiscal reasons.

Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, "The Development of Irrigation in Provence, 1700-1860," JEH, vol. 50 (1990), pp. 615-38.

Primary sources

Young, A. Travels in France during the Years 1787, 1788 and 1789, pp. 279-300, 312-13. Page numbers differ for Travels in France and Italy editions.

Cliffe Leslie, T.E. "The Land System in France", in Systems of Land Tenure in Various Countries, edited by J.W. Probyn, 1881, pp. 291-312.

Colman, Henry. The Agriculture and Rural Economy of France, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland, 1848, pp. 20-40.

de la Rochefoucauld, F. A Frenchman in England, 1784, pp. 157-242.

Reach, Angus B. Claret and Olives from the Garonne and Rhone, London, 1852, pp. 256-263.