Product Description

Richard Lachmann's work offers a new explanation for the origins of nation-states and capitalist markets in early modern Europe. Comparing regions and cities within and across England, France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries, Lachmann shows how conflict among feudal elites---landlords, clerics, kings and officeholders---transformed the bases of their control over land and labor, forcing the winners of feudal conflicts to become capitalists in spite of themselves as they took defensive actions to protect their privileges from rivals in the aftermath of the Reformation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3469482 in Books
• Published on: 2000-02-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 328 pages

Review
Bold intervention in scholarly debates and a dense narrative grounded in an admirably broad selection of historical monographs in English and French distinguish Capitalists in Spite of Themselves. Even historians well versed in the issues will find much food for thought in Lachmann's observations on such subjects as the establishment of nation-states, early modern social relations, or the limits of popular politics. What is more, his [Lachmann's] nuanced account succeeds well in balancing structural constraints, the impact of contingent events, and human agency ... this is an important book that deserves a wide readership as much for its own thesis as for its critical overview of a mass of secondary literature. (Journal of Modern History )