For over the past century and a half, and still more rapidly in the last seventy years, the world has become increasingly urban, and the peasant way of life - the dominant way of life for humanity since agriculture began well over 6,000 years ago - is disappearing. In this new history of peasantry, social historian Patrick Joyce aims to tell the story of this lost world and its people, and how we can commemorate their way of life. In one sense, this is a global history, but more specifically, Joyce's focus is the demise of the European peasantry and of their rites, traditions, and beliefs.
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