The “English Model” of Agrarian Development: Past History, Present Historiography

The English "Agricultural Revolution" of the later eighteenth century was widely seen at the time in Europe as the result of exemplary agricultural practice, and Arthur Young as its principal exponent. However, today economic historians disagree on both chronology and characteristics of this revolution, and the reliability of Young's voluminous writing is often questioned. The notion of an "Agricultural Revolution" itself dates only from around 1900; like the idea of an "Industrial Revolution" from which it borrowed, it is an idea that was not invoked during the period to which it refers. This disjunction between historiography and history - between the way in which events are subsequently described, and how contemporaries actually talked and wrote about their present - is overlaid by a further disjunction: while there was indeed at the time an ample European literature about the exemplary nature of English agriculture, not until the 1830s did the idea that the preceding fifty years were characterised by rapid industrial change become a commonplace. Today the mantra of "ideas in context" is broadly accepted; but which context? The context created by modern historiographies, or that of the beliefs and language and actions of historial actors?