This collection of essays provides an up-to-date introduction to 'proto-industrialization': the growth of export-oriented domestic industries which took place all over Europe between about 1500 and 1800. Often these industries expanded alongside agriculture, without advanced technology or centralized factories. Since the 1970s, numerous theories have been proposed, arguing that proto-industrialization transformed demographic behaviour, social structure and traditional institutions, and was a major cause of capitalism and factory industrialization. European proto-industrialization summarizes the theories and criticisms, and includes a reconsideration of the original theories, and chapters written by experts on different European countries. It provides an essential guide to an important, yet often confusing, field of economic and social history.

List of illustrations; List of tables; List of contributors; 1. The theories of proto-industrialization Sheilagh C. Ogilvie and Markus Cerman; 2. 'Proto-industrialization' as a research strategy and a historical period - a balance sheet Jürgen Schlumbohm; 3. Social institutions and proto-industrialization Sheilagh C. Ogilvie; 4. Proto-industrialization in France Pierre Deyon; 5. Proto-industrialization in England Pat Hudson; 6. Ireland 1841: pre-industrial or proto-industrial; industrializing or de-industrializing? L. A. Clarkson; 7. Proto-industrialization in Spain J. K. J. Thomson; 8. Proto-industry in Flanders: a critical review Christiaan Vandenbroeke; 9. Proto-industrialization in Germany Sheilagh C. Ogilvie; 10. Proto-industrialization in Switzerland Ulrich Pfister; 11. The proto-industrial heritage: forms of rural proto-industry in northern Italy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Carlo Marco Belfanti; 12. Proto-industrial development in Austria Markus Cerman; 13. Proto-industrialization in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia Milan My¿ka; 14. Proto-industrialization in Sweden Lars Magnusson; 15. Proto-industrialization, economic development and social change in early modern Europe Sheilagh C. Ogilvie and Markus Cerman; References; Index.