{"product_id":"freedoms-price","title":"Freedom's Price","description":"\u003cp\u003eIt is usually claimed that serfs were oppressed and unfree, but is this assumption true? Freedom's Price, building on a new reading of archival material, attempts a fundamental re-appraisal of the continuing orthodoxy that a 'serf' economy embodied peasant exploitation. It reveals that, in fact, Prussian 'subject' peasants fared much better than their 'free' neighbours; they had mutual rights and obligations with nobles and the\n\u003cbr\u003estate.In this volume, Sean Eddie seeks to establish the true 'price of freedom' paid by the peasants both in the so-called Second Serfdom around 1650 and in the enfranchisement of 1807-21. Far from representing\n\u003cbr\u003efurther exploitation, the peasants drove a hard bargain, and many nobles subsequently fared worse than their tenants; subjection was abolished and land ownership was transferred from noble to peasant. Capital was therefore at the centre of the pre-capitalist economy, and the growing economic polarization of society owed more to the peasants' access to capital than to noble exploitation. By locating Prussian serfdom and reforms in a pan-European context, and within debates about the nature of\n\u003cbr\u003eeconomic development, feudalism, and capitalism, Freedom's Price targets a wider audience of early modern and modern European historians, economic historians, and interested general readers.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Oxford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44156661924078,"sku":"9780199662753","price":277.61,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0630\/9612\/7726\/files\/9780199662753.jpg?v=1706221037","url":"https:\/\/bookland.com.au\/products\/freedoms-price","provider":"Book Land AU","version":"1.0","type":"link"}