Overcoming Institutional Inertia: Serfdom, the State and Agrarian Reform in Prussia and Russia
- Creators
- Dennison, Tracy
- Others:
- Broers, M.
- Caiani, A. A.
- Bann, S.
Abstract
Tracy Dennison Periods of radical reform are attractive to historians, for they are fascinatingly complex historical events. But they can also be misleading. What appears radical at a given moment may have been, in fact, the result of a series of smaller, incremental changes over a long period of time. Similarly, a radical plan for social and economic change may, once implemented, leave the existing institutional equilibrium largely unchanged, thus having a trivial impact on the lives of most people. These possibilities are explored here, through a comparison of two major agrarian reform efforts in the nineteenth century: the abolition of serfdom in Prussia (1807) and in Russia (1861) . It will be suggested that in both cases reform was far less radical than implied in the historiography. In Prussia, the institutional equilibrium was altered significantly, though over quite a long period of time, with the 'shock' of the French...
Additional Information
© 2020 Bloomsbury Academic.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 108814
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20210423-131432341
- Created
-
2021-04-23Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-07-29Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Series Name
- International Library of Historical Studies