Of Seeds, Seasons, and Seas: Andrew Watson's Medieval Agrarian Revolution Forty Years Later
@article{Squatriti2014OfSS, title={Of Seeds, Seasons, and Seas: Andrew Watson's Medieval Agrarian Revolution Forty Years Later}, author={Paolo Squatriti}, journal={The Journal of Economic History}, year={2014}, volume={74}, pages={1205 - 1220} }
Since its publication in 1974, Andrew Watson's article “The Arab Agricultural Revolution and Its Diffusion, 700–1100,” has been used and cited widely by historians and archaeologists, many working in fields far removed from Watson's. This essay explores the nature of Watson's impact and attempts to explain it.
13 Citations
Innovation or preservation? Abbasid aubergines, archaeobotany, and the Islamic Green Revolution
- HistoryArchaeological and Anthropological Sciences
- 2020
The topic of agricultural innovation in the Early Islamic empires has become increasingly relevant for archeology, history, and even agricultural science. The validity of Andrew Watson’s original…
A Journey to the West: The Ancient Dispersal of Rice Out of East Asia
- HistoryRice
- 2021
The piecemeal, but growing, archaeobotanical data for rice in West Asia is discussed, and two separate and roughly contemporaneous routes of westward dispersal are illustrated, one along the South Asian coast and the other through Silk Road trade.
The Town as Agrarian Dissipative Structure: Cash Crops in the Medieval Kingdom of Galicia
- History
- 2022
Towns emerged as dynamic economic and political centers during the Middle Ages, giving rise to the emergence of new social classes. As a result of these functions, a new relationship began to be…
Terraced Fields, Irrigation Systems and Agricultural Production in Early Islamic Palestine and Jordan
- HistoryJournal of Islamic Archaeology
- 2021
Contrary to previous analysis that suggested a rapid deterioration and abandonment of settlements and their related agricultural fields in Early Islamic Palestine and Jordan, recent studies point to…
New insights into early medieval Islamic cuisine: Organic residue analysis of pottery from rural and urban Sicily
- HistoryPloS one
- 2021
This is the first time organic residue analysis of ceramics has been used to explore foodways in a medieval multi-faith society and offers new pathways to the understanding of pottery use and resources that were prepared, consumed and combined, reflecting cuisine in different socio-economic environments within the pluralistic population of medieval Sicily.
A Medieval Homo Economicus?
- Economics, History
- 2021
Abstract:Cultural beliefs that are reflected in homo economicus were transmitted from ancient Indo-European civilizations to Frankish society. I use medieval texts to demonstrate that Gaul's conquest…
Economic and socio-cultural consequences of changing political rule on human and faunal diets in medieval Valencia (c. fifth–fifteenth century AD) as evidenced by stable isotopes
- GeographyArchaeological and Anthropological Sciences
- 2019
This paper explores the impact of changing religious political rule on subsistence within a single city through time using stable isotope analysis of human and animal bone collagen. The diet and…
»I am a virgin woman and a virgin woman’s child« Critical Plant Theory and the Maiden Mother Conceit in Early Medieval Riddles
- LinguisticsMedieval Worlds
- 2021
While early medieval riddles in Old English and, to a lesser extent, Latin, have been studied extensively from ecocritical perspectives in recent years, the large corpora of riddles in other…
Recent trends in Middle East economic history: Cultural factors and structural change in the medieval period 650–1500 (Part one)
- History, EconomicsHistory Compass
- 2018
Ultimately, the changes to the structures of the economy in the Middle East explain part of the growth in the economy, but not all. A shift to property rights, for instance, could not have occurred…
Structure and Dynamics of Islamic Social Formations (Seventh–Fourteenth Century)
- History, EconomicsHistorical Materialism
- 2022
From the seventh to the fourteenth century, the Muslim world’s key actors were free peasants working limited and scattered cultivated areas, whose communities paid heavy taxes. A distinct nomadic…
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 68 REFERENCES
A Green Revolution?
- HistoryThe Journal of African History
- 1984
In 1974 Andrew Watson first proposed an 'agricultural revolution' in the early Islamic world: he has recently returned to the theme (' A medieval green revolution', The Islamic Middle East, ed. A.…
Plants and Progress: Rethinking the Islamic Agricultural Revolution
- History
- 2009
Since it was first proposed in the 1970s, the concept of an Islamic agricultural revolution, in which new plants and techniques spread rapidly from east to west and transformed agriculture in the…
Agricultural Revolution in England: The Transformation of the Agrarian Economy 1500-1850
- Economics, History
- 1996
Preface A note on weights, measures, money and boundaries 1. The agricultural revolution 2. Farming in the sixteenth century 3. Agricultural output and productivity, 1500-1850 4. Institutional…
The Cambridge Economic History of Europe. Volume I: The Agrarian Life of the Middle Ages.@@@Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West.
- Economics, History
- 1968
In 1961 Georges Duby wrote what is still the best overview of European medieval rural history to date. Originally published in French and first translated into English in 1968, Rural Economy and…
The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory: Why did Foragers become Farmers?
- History
- 2006
The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory addresses one of the most debated and least understood revolutions in the history of our species, the change from hunting and gathering to farming. Graeme…
From Peasant Studies to Agrarian Change
- Economics
- 2001
This inaugural essay surveys themes and approaches in agrarian political economy over the last three decades, especially with reference to contributions to, and debates in, the Journal of Peasant…
Old World globalization and the Columbian exchange: comparison and contrast
- Environmental Science
- 2012
Abstract A recent paper by Jones et al. (Food globalization in prehistory, World Archaeology, 2011, 43(4), 665–75) explores a prehistoric ‘Trans-Eurasian’ episode of food globalization characterized…
Agricultural innovation and socio-economic change in early medieval Europe: evidence from Britain and France
- History, Economics
- 2010
Abstract Historical and archaeological data suggest that the Middle Saxon period (c. 650–850 ce) in eastern England was an era of substantial social, political and economic change. This paper argues…
The Arab Agricultural Revolution and Its Diffusion, 700–1100
- History, EconomicsThe Journal of Economic History
- 1974
The rapid spread of Islam into three continents in the seventh and eighth centuries was followed by the diffusion of an equally remarkable but less well documented agricultural revolution.…
Comment on Paper by Watson
- HistoryThe Journal of Economic History
- 1974
Historians agree that the Muslim achievement in the field of agricultural technique was notable—particularly in the areas of irrigation technology and the introduction of new crops. Yet this splendid…