Search

Argues that on the basis of evidence of British soldiers there was a threat of a Malthusian crisis on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Population growth [in England] between 1540 and 1640 was sufficient to stimulate economic growth but not so great as to create Malthusian conditions. The population total by 1640 was still probably well below earlier population peaks and arguments by many pre-industrial historians for a Malthusian crisis in the early seventeenth century rest on dubious assumptions. A combination of revised medieval population estimates and the recent Cambridge Group estimates for the early modern period is used to argue for a relatively optimistic view of Tawneys century. (EXCERPT)