Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern WorldThis classic work of comparative history explores why some countries have developed as democracies and others as fascist or communist dictatorships Originally published in 1966, this classic text is a comparative survey of some of what Barrington Moore considers the major and most indicative world economies as they evolved out of pre-modern political systems into industrialism. But Moore is not ultimately concerned with explaining economic development so much as exploring why modes of development produced different political forms that managed the transition to industrialism and modernization. Why did one society modernize into a "relatively free," democratic society (by which Moore means England)? Why did others metamorphose into fascist or communist states? His core thesis is that in each country, the relationship between the landlord class and the peasants was a primary influence on the ultimate form of government the society arrived at upon arrival in its modern age. “Throughout the book, there is the constant play of a mind that is scholarly, original, and imbued with the rarest gift of all, a deep sense of human reality . . . This book will influence a whole generation of young American historians and lead them to problems of the greatest significance.” —The New York Review of Books |
Contents
England and the Contributions of Violence | 3 |
Evolution and Revolution in France | 40 |
Absolutism | 63 |
Copyright | |
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agrarian Agrarian Origins agriculture American American Civil War ancien régime areas aristocracy bourgeois bourgeoisie British bureaucracy capitalism capitalist caste changes chap China Chinese Chōshū Civil commercial Communists countryside cultivation daimyō democracy democratic discussion Economic History economic surplus eighteenth century élite enclosures England English evidence fact farmers farming fascism feudal forces France French French Revolution gentry Germany historians Imperial important India industrial Japan Japanese Kuomintang labor landed aristocracy landed upper classes landlords Lefebvre mainly Meiji ment merchants modern Mogul Moreland movement Nien Rebellion nineteenth century nobility nomic notion parliamentary parliamentary democracy peas peasant revolution peasant society peasantry peasants plantation political population problem produce radical reactionary rebellion reform repressive revolutionary royal rulers rural Russia samurai sans-culottes seems Shōgun situation slavery social structure statistical strong surplus tenants tion Tokugawa took towns traditional urban Vendée village Western zamindars