An Economic and Social History of Later Medieval Europe, 1000–1500

This book examines the most important themes in European social and economic history from the beginning of growth around the year 1000 to the first wave of global exchange in the 1490s. These five hundred years witnessed the rise of economic systems, and the social theories that would have a profound influence on the rest of the world over the next five centuries. Surveying the full extent of Europe, from east to west and north to south, Steven Epstein illuminates family life, economic and social thought, war, technologies, and other major themes while giving equal attention to developments in trade, crafts, and agriculture. The great waves of famine and then plague in the fourteenth century provide the centerpiece of a book that seeks to explain the causes of Europe's uneven prosperity and its response to catastrophic levels of death.

Reviews & endorsements

'The clarity and precision of Steven Epstein's survey of the history of the later medieval economy are without doubt two of its most wonderful features. Students and seasoned scholars alike will actually relish reading the book. … This book is synthesis of a very high order.' William Chester Jordan, Princeton University and author of The Great Famine

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Product details

• Date Published: July 2009
• format: Paperback
• isbn: 9780521706537
• length: 304 pages

• dimensions: 226 x 147 x 18 mm
• weight: 0.41kg
• contains: 36 b/w illus. 10 maps 1 table
• availability: Available