Peasantries in Anthropology and History [and Comments and Replies]

This paper describes three sequential stages of West European peasantry (feudal, early modern, late modern) in order to establish a basis for comparison with the peasantries currently studied by anthropologists in Third World countries (almost all of which are in the early stage of economic development and cultural modernization). The village-community peasantries of the Third World may be regarded either as varying mixtures of tribal and some stage(s) of European peasantry (hybrids) or as combinations of institutions and technology from two, or all three, stages of European peasantry (composites).