A groundbreaking study of the interrelationship between consumption, living standards and work in the early modern English economy.

Until the widespread harnessing of machine energy, food was the energy which fuelled the economy. In this groundbreaking study of agricultural labourers' diet and material standard of living, Craig Muldrew uses new empirical research to present a much fuller account of the interrelationship between consumption, living standards and work in the early modern English economy than has previously existed. The book integrates labourers into a study of the wider economy and engages with the history of food as an energy source and its importance to working life, the social complexity of family earnings, and the concept of the industrious revolution'. It argues that industriousness' was as much the result of ideology and labour markets as labourers' household consumption. Linking this with ideas about the social order of early modern England, the author demonstrates that bread, beer and meat were the petrol of this world, and a springboard for economic change.

Review
'This is certainly the most original and significant investigation of the living standards and working patterns of rural labourers in early modern England to appear for decades. It radically revises some previous assumptions, subtly nuances others, and raises new questions ...' Keith Wrightson, Yale University 'This excellent new study, based on impressive empirical research and inventive analysis, affords unprecedented insight on the working lives and standards of living of labouring people in early modern England. This book sheds important new light on consumption, agricultural improvement, and the 'industrious revolution' that predated industrialisation, and will prove indispensable to our assessment of the contribution of the labouring population to, as well as their experience of, economic change during a critical period of growth.' Alexandra Shepard, University of Glasgow 'With this volume Craig Muldrew advances our understanding of living standards, industriousness, and the working lives of men, women, and children in rural England.' Journal of British Studies

Craig Muldrew is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge.