Review

Advance praise: 'This is certainly the most original and significant investigation of the living standards and working patterns of rural labourers in early modern England to appear for decades. It radically revises some previous assumptions, subtly nuances others, and raises new questions ...' Keith Wrightson, Yale University

'This excellent new study, based on impressive empirical research and inventive analysis, affords unprecedented insight on the working lives and standards of living of labouring people in early modern England. This book sheds important new light on consumption, agricultural improvement, and the 'industrious revolution' that predated industrialisation, and will prove indispensable to our assessment of the contribution of the labouring population to, as well as their experience of, economic change during a critical period of growth.' Alexandra Shepard, University of Glasgow

Book Description

Until the widespread harnessing of machine energy, food fuelled the economy. In this groundbreaking study of agricultural labourers' diet and material standard of living, Craig Muldrew uses new empirical research to present a fuller account of the interrelationship between consumption, living standards and work than has previously existed.