This book follows the renovation of European economic history towards a more unified interpretation of sources of growth and stagnation. It looks at Portuguese agricultural development across the second Millennium, showing a sector that was often adaptive and dynamic. Portugal's economic backwardness was not overcome at the end of the period, but that is now only part of the story.

Dulce Freire, PhD (2008) in Contemporary History (FCSH-UNL), is research fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon. She works in rural and agricultural history in Portuguese and Iberian contexts. She is coordinator of the FCT research project: "Portuguese agriculture: food, development and sustainability, 1870-2010", and chair of the Rural History Network/ESSHC-IISG. Among her publications are To Produce and To Drink. The wine issue in the Estado Novo, 2010 and Rural world: transformation and resistance in the Iberian Peninsula (20th Century), 2004.

Pedro Lains, PhD (1992) in History (European University Institute, Florence), is research Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon. He researches mainly in Economic History of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Among his publications are História da Caixa Geral de Depósitos, 1876-2010, 2011 and Agriculture and Economic Development in Europe since 1870, 2008.