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Since it was first proposed in the 1970s, the concept of an Islamic agricultural revolution, in which new plants and techniques spread rapidly from east to west and transformed agriculture in the Mediterranean basin, has gained widespread acceptance. Based on an investigation of a sample of plants, the present article argues that changes in farming attributed to the era of classical Islam were far more complex and distended than previously acknowledged. This casts doubt on the validity of the theory of a medieval "green revolution" and calls for a reexamination of its fundamental tenets.

Books reviewed in this article:Phillipp R. Schofield, Peasant and Community in Medieval EnglandIan Kershaw & David M. Smith (eds.), The Bolton Priory CompotusMichael Jones (ed.), Revolution and Consumption in Late Medieval EnglandPeter Northeast (ed.), Wills of the Archdeaconry of SudburyPamela Sharpe, Population and Society in an East Devon ParishDonald Winch & Patrick K. O'Brien (eds.), The Political Economy of British Historical ExperienceS.D. Smith, 'An Exact and Industrious Tradesman'Nicola Verdon, Rural Women Workers in Nineteenth‐Century EnglandJ.R. Wordie (ed.), Agriculture and Politics in EnglandLewis Johnman & Hugh Murphy, British Shipbuilding and the StateJairus Banaji, Agrarian Change in Late AntiquityAngeliki E. Laiou, The Economic History of ByzantiumAdriaan Verhulst, The Carolingian EconomyAdam Steinhouse, Workers' Participation in Post‐Liberation FrancePatrick Major & Jonathan Osmond (eds.), The Workers' and Peasants' StateRainer Karlsch & Raymond Stokes, The Chemistry must be RightMonica Chojnacka, Working Women of Early Modern VeniceHarold James & Jacob Tanner (eds.), Enterprise in the Period of Fascism in EuropeWendy Z. Goldman, Women at the GatesDavid Armitage & Michael J. Braddick (eds.), The British Atlantic worldSteven W. Usselman, Regulating Railroad InnovationNikki Mandell, The Corporation as FamilyBruce L. Gardner, American Agriculture in the Twentieth CenturyStefano Battilossi & Youssef Cassis (eds.), European Banks and the American ChallengeGeoffrey Jones & Lina Galvez‐Munoz (eds.), Foreign Multinationals in the United StatesMauro F. Guillén, The Limits of ConvergenceDennis O. Flynn, Arturo Giráldez & James Sobredo (eds.), Studies in Pacific HistoryNick Tiratsoo, Junichi Hasegawa, Tony Mason & Takao Matsumara, Urban Reconstruction in Britain and JapanDavid Zweig, Internationalizing ChinaCharles H. Feinstein & Mark Thomas, Making History CountPhillip Mirowski, Machine Dreams

This article challenges the growing consensus in the literature that medieval manorial managers were price responsive in their production decisions. Using prices of and acreages planted with wheat, barley, and oats on manors held by the bishop of Winchester from 1325 to 1370, price elasticities of supply are estimated for each grain in aggregate and on each particular manor. Aggregate price elasticities of supply for wheat, barley, and oats were rarely statistically significant and when significant were very low compared with elasticities estimated for developing and developed countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The low levels of agricultural supply response in fourteenth‐century England suggest that commercialization was not as dominant in the medieval economy as has been argued. Thus, structural changes in the economy, such as the leasing of demesnes, the growth of wage labour, and the end of villeinage, may have been more important than price fluctuations in driving long‐run economic change after the Black Death. Likewise, a shift from low price responsiveness to higher price responsiveness could have been an important part of the capitalist transformation of agriculture in the early modern period.

In the literature of medieval Turkish civilization, the concept of "sünbül" has a very rich variety of usage. This diversity has manifested itself in the humanities as well as in the natural and applied sciences, especially in Turkish poetry, where the concept of sünbül is widely used. How does the concept of sünbül differ between texts of natural and applied sciences and literature? In literary texts, it is necessary to investigate what is meant by the use of sünbül. In this study, we discussed what is meant by the use of sünbül in poetry by comparing the works created using Turkish in the Middle Ages in natural and applied sciences with the medieval Turkish poetry. In the literature of medieval Turkish civilization, the concept of "sünbül" is a concept used in the disciplines of botany, astrology and semiotics, as well as its use as a poetic image. In our study, a general viewpoint has been created to cover the definition and usage areas of the use of sünbül in the works of the Old Anatolian Turkish period, and in the conclusion part, all these uses and the values that the concept expresses. According to our findings, the use of "sünbül" in Turkish poetry is related to its terminology in the three disciplines. As a botanical term, a relation was established between the sünbül and the ideal woman's hair, and the pleasant scents of the plants known as sünbül in the Middle Ages, the filamentous structures seen in the root systems of these plants or, possibly, the inflorescence. As the term of astronomy, sünbül is meant by establishing a visual similarity with the concept of sünbül, which is used as a botanical term, and the modern sign of Virgo, called "sünbüle". As a semiotic term, the sünbül was used to indicate the perfect hair of the ideal woman, as well as the scent of this hair, it has also been mentioned among the elements that complement the beauty of a unique and celestial garden from time to time. This study also argues that in addition to the aforementioned forms of use, the establishment of the relationship between "sünbül" and "zülüf" is an evolved manifestation of the feeling of gratitude towards the goddesses of agriculture in Antiquity. Keywords: History of plants, Medieval astronomy, Medieval botany, Medieval semiology, spikenard.

Archaeological investigations of al-Andalus has become increasingly important in medieval studies, but it has traditionally been left out of the research agenda of European medieval archaeology. This is due to its exoticism and not fitting in well with the construction of a European identity and Spanish national history based on Christian expansion and the "Reconquest" process. At the same time, due to the geographical location and geopolitical position of the Iberian Peninsula within the "West", scholars working on Islamic archaeology have dedicated less attention to al-Andalus than to other territories. Several factors pose a challenge for current research: the possibility of confrontation with feudal societies; the increasing importance given to technological transfer all along al-Andalus; religious, economic and institutional differences within Christian territories; the importance given in recent years to the identity construction of alterity; and the strong impact that the Andalusi period had on the creation of current landscapes, especially due to irrigated agriculture. This paper tries to reflect on and analyze the historiographical marginality of al-Andalus in both European medieval archaeology and Islamic archaeology. The aim is to understand how we have built an international narrative of the marginality of a territory that is theoretically outside Europe and outside the environment in which classical Islam developed, based mainly on literature produced in English on this matter. In short, this paper poses the question of whether postcolonial theory is a valid category of analysis for al-Andalus.

Book Reviewed in this article:M. M. Postan. Essays on Medieval Agriculture and General Problems of the Medieval Economy.M. M. Postan. Medieval Trade and Finance.Richard W. Kaeuper. Bankers to the Crown: The Riccardi of Lucca and Edward I.Alan Crossley (Ed.). A Victoria History of the County of Oxford, vol. X. Banbury Hundred.David Underdown. Somerset in the Civil War and Interregnum.Margaret Roake and John Whyman (Eds.). Essays in Kentish History.Alan Everitt (Ed.). Perspectives in English Urban History.David Baker (Ed.). The Inhabitants of Cardington in 1782.J. A. Robey and L. Porter. The Copper and Lead Mines of Ecton Hill, Staffordshire.John Foster. Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution: Early Industrial Capitalism in Three English Towns.Philip J. Riden. The Butterley Company, 1790–1830: A Derbyshire Ironworks in the Industrial Revolution.Patricia Hollis (Ed.). Class and Conflict in Nineteenth‐Century England, 1815–1850.Douglas C. North and Robert Paul Thomas. The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History.D. V. Glass and Roger Revelle (Eds.). Population & Social Change.Henry A. Landsberger (Ed.). Rural Protest: Peasant Movements and Social Change.Georges Duby. The Early Growth of the European Economy: Warriors and Peasants from the Seventh to the Twelfth Century.Peter Earle (Ed.). Essays in European History, 1500–1800.Marcello Carmagnani. Les Mécanismes de la Vie Economique dans une Société Coloniale: Le Chili (1680–1830).Eugen Mewes (Ed.). Terra Nostra; Culegere de Materiale Privind Istoria Agrará a Romanici.Imre Wellmann (Ed.). Proceedings of the Hungarian Agricultural Museum, 1971–2.I. T. Berend and G. Ranki. Hungary. A Century of Economic Development.Theodore Zeldin. France: 1848–1945. Volume One. Ambition, Love and Politics.Ronald Dore. British Factory—Japanese Factory: The Origins of National Diversity in Industrial Relations.Internationaal Colloquium (Spa 5–8‐IX‐1968). De burgerlijke openbare gebouwen in de Europese steden en hun financiering in de Middeleeuwen en onder het Ancien Régime. Handelingen.D. Degreve, D'une analyse de la révolution industrielle à un diagnostic du sous‐développement (suite et fin).H. Thomas, A. L. Constantse, et alia. 'De Spaanse Burgeroorlog en zijn gevolgen.J. H. Munro. Wool, Cloth and Gold: The Struggle for Bullion in Anglo‐Burgundian Trade, 1340–1478.K. Bertels. Geschiedenis tussen struktuur en evenment. Een methodologisch en wijsgerig onderzoek.'Special Issue on Agricultural History in Nineteenth Century Belgium', Revue belge d'histoire contemporaineS. Hart. 'Amsterdam Shipping and Trade to Northern Russia in the Seventeenth Century', Mededelingen van de Nederlandse Vereniging voor zeegeschiedenisJ. Everaert. De internationale en koloniale handel der Vlaamse firma's te Cadiz, 1670–1700 (avec un résumé français: le commerce international et colonial des firmes flamandes à Cadix, 1670–1700). Acta Historiae Neerlandicau: Studies on the History of the Netherlands. P. Creutzberg (Ed.). Het ekonomisch beleid in Nederlandsch‐Indië. Capita selecta. Een bronnenpublikatie, Vol. I.W. De Vries. 150 Jaar Welstand, de Maatschappij tot bevordering van welstand, voornamelijk onder landlieden, 1822–1972.J. De Vries. De Nederlandse economie tijdens de 20ste eeuw. Een verkenning van het meest kenmerkende.M. Van Durme (Ed.). Les Archives générales de Simancas et l'histoire de la Belgique (IXe–XIXe siècles)P. M. M. Klep. Het huishouden in westelyk Noord‐Brabant: Structuur en ontivikkeling, 1750–1849.H. A. Enno Van Gelder. Gegevens betreffende roerend en onroerend bezit in de Nederlanden in de 16e eeuwJ. De Vries. De Coöperatieve Raffaisen‐ en Boerenleenbanken in Nederland, 1948–1973: Van exponent tot component.J. F. Bläsing. Das goldene Delta und sein eisernes Hinterland, 1815–1851. Von niederländischpreussischen zu deutsch‐niederlandischen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen.T. Van der Wal. Op zoek naar een nieuwe vrijheid: Een kwart eeuw arbeidersbeweging in Friesland, 1870–1895.L. Vire. La distribution publique d'eau à Bruxelles, 1830–1870.J. van Herwaarden (Ed.). Lof der Historie. Opstellen over geschiedenis en maatschappij.L. Schepens. Van Vlaskutser tot Franschman. Bijdrage tot de Geschiedenis van de Westvlaamse plattelandsbevolking in de negentiende eeuw.G. Hansotte. La principauté de Stavelot‐Malmédy à la fin de l'Ancien Régime. Carte de la principauté en 1789; dénombrement des maisons, des chevaux et des bestiaux vers 1750.J. Fichefet. Histoire de la commune de Saint‐Martin.M. Claeys‐Van Haegendoorn. Hendrik de Man: Biografie.C. Verlinden et. al. Dokumenten voor de Geschiedenis van Prijzen en Lonen in Vlaanderen en Brabant (XVIe‐XIXe E.)W. P. Blockmans (Ed.). Handelingen van de leden en van de staten van Vlaanderen. Regeringen van Maria van Bourgondië en Filips de Schone (5 januari 1477–26 september 1506). Excerpten uit de rekeningen van de Vlaamse steden en kasselrijen en van de vorstelijke ambtenaren. Deel I: tot de vrede van Kadzand, 1492. Histoire Economique de la Belgique. Traitement des Sources et Etat des Questions—Economische Geschiedenis van België. Behandeling van de Bronnen en Problematiek. Actes du Colloque de Bruxelles—Handelingen van het Colloquium te Brussel. 17–19 nov. 1971 Histoire Economique de la Belgique. Traitement des Sources et Etat des Questions P. M. M. Klep. Groeidynamiek en stagnatie in een agrarisch grensgebied. De ekonomische ontwikkeling in de Noordanlwerpse Kempen en de Baronie van Breda, 1750–1850. Studies over de sociaal‐economische geschiedenis van Limburg F. Pollentier. De Admiraliteit en de oorlog ter zee onder de Aartshertogen (1596–1609).

AbstractEstimates of English income in Broadberry et al.'s British economic growth, 1270–1870 are founded upon a fourfold growth of farm output, and output per farm worker, over this interval. This article shows, using four separate tests, that farm output growth must have been much more limited. The tests are, first, whether in 1300 there was enough work at harvest to employ all the labour force; second, whether the value of output per worker in agriculture was greater than the annual earnings of workers; third, whether the implied relative outputs per acre of arable versus pasture were reasonable; and fourth, whether a much shorter medieval work year was possible. An alternative index of farm output consistent with the labour supply, wages, and farm rents is derived. This shows much less growth during the period 1270–1800. Overall economic growth in England during these years must consequently have been far less than Broadberry et al. estimate.

SummaryThe theory of selection of quantitative traits is widely used in evolutionary biology, agriculture and other related fields. The fundamental model known as the breeder's equation is simple, robust over short time scales, and it is often possible to estimate plausible parameters. In this paper it is suggested that the results of this model provide useful yardsticks for the description of social traits and the evaluation of transmission models. The differences on a standard personality test between samples of Old Order Amish and Indiana rural young men from the same county and the decline of homicide in Medieval Europe are used as illustrative examples of the overall approach. It is shown that the decline of homicide is unremarkable under a threshold model while the differences between rural Amish and non-Amish young men are too large to be a plausible outcome of simple genetic selection in which assortative mating by affiliation is equivalent to truncation selection.

This review explores recent research within the territory of the modern Sudan and Nubia. One special interest of this region's history and archaeology lies in its role as a zone of interaction between diverse cultural traditions linking sub-Saharan Africa, Egypt, the Mediterranean world, and beyond. The exceptionally early development of large-scale polities in the Middle Nile also offers remarkable opportunities for exploring the archaeology of the development of political power as well as for exploring research topics of a wide significance, both within and beyond African archaeology, such as the development of agriculture, urbanism, and metallurgy. The unique opportunities offered by the Nile corridor for trans-Saharan contacts have also ensured that the region's archaeology provides an extraordinary scope for exploring the interplay and interaction of indigenous and external cultural traditions, often very obviously manifested in the material worlds of the region: from their encounters with Pharaonic Egypt to the incorporation of Nubian kingdoms into medieval Christendom and the creation of new Arab and Muslim identities in the postmedieval world.

It is Generally Agreed that the Beginning of the Persian Literary Renaissance of the tenth–eleventh centuries was concomitant with the emergence of a bureaucratic tradition that had its roots in pre-Islamic Sasanian Iran. The avatars of these bureaucratic principles in medieval Perso-Islamic history—Nizam al-Mulk, Rashid al-Din, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, to name the most famous—were trained in Arabic and Persian, wrote scholarly treatises on a wide array of religious, philosophical, and scientific topics, and advocated, among other things, the need for responsible rule and consistent administration according to Islamic law and custom. These admonitions were generally directed at their Turkic and Mongol dynastic patrons whose steppe traditions were often at cross-purposes with the running of a sedentary society that depended on irrigated agriculture, commerce, public works, and systems of taxation. Prominent Persian bureaucrats and their descendents undertook these duties and were able to accrue considerable power and wealth, but often at a high cost when we read of the fates of Rashid al-Din, Saᶜd al-Dawla and Juvayni.

AbstractThe study of the history of man's knowledge of plants and animals is all the more necessary in that it has been neglected in favor of the study of the development of tools. For instance, as Lewis Mumford has pointed out 1), knowledge of the modes of reproduction and growth of plants was more necessary to the development of agriculture in Neolithic times than was the invention of such tools as the spade, the hoe, and the plow, around which most conventional notions of "technological history" revolve. In presenting a paper, then, on attitudes towards the preservation of living things and their habitat in medieval China, I hope to redress the balance of interest, if only slightly, in favor of man's direct involvement with the natural world, and away from study of artifacts preserved in museums. It is, of course, necessary to do this through the study of documents. This paper is divided into two parts. In the first I will discuss some cultural factors which seem to have influenced policy relating to the conservation of nature, and in the second I will discuss some of the particular measures undertaken to make policy effective.

AbstractRelative sea‐level fluctuations during the Holocene period have combined with medieval to present saline floodplain embanking to reduce the inter‐tidal saltmarsh area in Essex from 40 000 ha to 4400 ha. The present loss by erosion is estimated at 2%/annum for the country, and the reduction in these areas is not only detrimental to related habitats but has caused an increasing requirement for flood‐defence financial investment.Recent initiatives by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Environment Agency and English Nature have created mechanisms and opportunities to develop sustainable flood‐control structures where coastal re‐alignment has been the preferred option.The Orplands frontage covers 2 km of sea wall which have been deliberately breached to allow 40 ha of rare saltmarsh to re‐establish. At Abbotts Hall, an arable field of 20 ha has been converted to its former saltmarsh by creek re‐establishment and tidal inundation by reversal of existing sluices. These two schemes have (a) regenerated habitats for halophytic and semi‐halophytic plants, marine and brackish invertebrates, and (b) provided roost, feed and breeding areas for birds and nursery areas for marine fish fry. Apart from flood control and habitat creation, particular features were incorporated to provide niche locations for targeted types of wildlife.

This article argues that in its enormous Northern and Eastern stretches, the geographical space of Russia was shaped by the fur trade. The essay follows the boom and depletion of the fur trade in the longue durée of Russian history. The fur trade brought many Northern tribes to the edge of extermination. Hunting and trapping was intrinsically violent, did not entail the long-term cycles that were characteristic for agriculture, and needed no participation from women. It also created the situation that some historians called the hyper-activity of the state. The resource-bound economy made the population largely superfluous. The essay also explores the historiography of the fur trade and the debates that this historiography saw in the 1920s. Finally, it draws an analogy between two resource-bound epochs, the pre-modern dependency of the Russian state on fur and its modern dependency on oil. Very little part of the population took part in the fur business, with the result that the state did not care about the population and the population did not care about the state. A caste-like society emerges in these conditions. The security apparatus becomes identical to the state. Due to a chance of history or geography, the same areas that fed the fur trade of medieval Novgorod and Moscow, have provided the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia with their means for existence.

Great Britain And Ireland S. H. Rigby, A medieval mercantile community: the Grocers' Company and the politics and trade of London, 1000‐1485Peter Clark, The history of an English borough: Stratford‐upon‐Avon, 1196‐1996Donald Woodward, The new draperies in the Low Countries and England, 1300‐1800J. R. Wordie, Alternative agriculture: a history from the Black Death to the present dayRobert Tittler, English counties and public building, 1650‐1830Michael Turner, Parliamentary enclosure in England: an introduction to its causes, incidence and impact, 1750‐1850 Jeremy Gregory, Aspects of the Georgian church: visitation studies of the diocese of York, 1761‐1776Richard Whatmore, Progress, poverty and population: re‐reading Condorcet, Godwin and Malthus R. G. Wilson, The diary of Robert Sharp of South Cave: life in a Yorkshire village, 1812‐1837Peter Cain, Free trade and Liberal England, 1846‐1946John Sheail, A history of water in modern England and WalesKenneth D. Brown, Religion, business and wealth in modern BritainPenny Starns, Labour, social policy and the welfare stateJohn F. Wilson, Finance in the age of the corporate economyPeter Howlett, Governance, industry and labour markets in Britain and France: the modernising state in the mid‐twentieth century General Sitta Von Reden, Warriors into traders: the power of the market in early GreeceChristopher Dyer, The growth of the medieval city: from late antiquity to the early fourteenth century; idem, The later medieval city, 1300‐1500Colin Heywood, Burgundy to Champagne: the wine trade in early modern FranceHugh Clout, The brandy trade under the ancien regime: regional specialisation in the CharenteDavid Ormrod, The first modern economy: success, failure, and perseverance of the Dutch economy, 1500‐1815Ted Wilson, Merchants, bankers, middlemen: the Amsterdam money market during the first half of the 19th centuryMichael Wintle, The economic history of the Netherlands, 1914‐1995: a small open economy in the 'long' twentieth century Henry Roseveare, From the North Sea to the Baltic: essays in commercial, monetary and agrarian history, 1500‐1800 J. K. J. Thomson, State corporatism and proto‐industry: the Württemberg Black Forest, 1580‐1797Alan Dyer, Urban decline in early modern Germany: Schwäbisch Hall and its region, 1650‐1750Michael Palairet, Rebuilding the financial system in central and eastern Europe, 1918‐1994 Catherine R. Schenk, Monetary standards and exchange ratesA. Slaven , European enterprise: strategies of adaptation and renewal in the twentieth century John J. Mccusker, Tobacco in the Atlantic trade: the Chesapeake, London and Glasgow, 1675‐1775John Killick, Trading beyond the mountains: the British fur trade on the Pacific, 1793‐1843Timothy J. Lockley, From Calabar to Carter's Grove: the history of a Virginia slave communityS. J. Kleinberg, Civic wars: democracy and public life in the American city during the nineteenth centuryArni Sverrisson, Endless novelty: specialty production and American industrialization, 1865‐1925Gary Herrigel, Steel phoenix: the fall and rise of the US steel industryPeter Coates, Wetlands of the American Midwest: a historical geography of changing attitudesRobert G. Greenhill, Studies in the history of Latin American economic thoughtChristopher J. Napier, The development of accounting in an inter‐national context: a festschrift in honour of R. H. Parker