The Power of Peasants

“In addition to being reader-friendly in style and language, this comprehensive and detailed study’s most significant contribution is its demonstration of peasant agency across a broader temporal and geographical scope…. The Power of Peasants … encourages a reconsideration of the transformative impact of peasants in European social and economic history, as well as the significance of conflicts among different actors. The book transcends the economic history of rural Southern Germany by offering a grand narrative uncommon in the existing literature. It is a work that merits broader attention and scholarly discussion.”

“Robert Dees has made a significant contribution…. Beyond a rich synthesis and rigorous observation of economic and social realities, he offers an original perspective by emphasizing the relations of power and conflicts in the rural world between peasants and lords…. According to R. Dees, the peasants’ liberation from serfdom and their victories are a major factor in economic expansion, and vice versa for their defeats. I particularly appreciated Dees’s ability to provide broad perspectives while drawing on local experiences and crucial, revealing episodes.… The book reads easily; it will interest specialists, prove useful to students, and be enriching for an informed general readership.”

Translated from French

“Robert Dees has written a highly readable and effective account of an important sector of southern Germany, Memmingen and the Allgäu, in the late middle ages and early modern period, based on rigorous research. This is a local analysis of oppression, resistance and long- term trends with wide implications for the European economic and social history of the period. Anyone interested in that history should read it.”

“In contrast to mainstream economic historians, Dees argues that peasants in overwhelmingly agricultural ancient and medieval economies played an essential role in advancing civilisation in Europe…. Dees offers the reader a materialist conception of history in his account of the role of the peasantry in Europe since ancient Rome…. Dees provides a new explanation for the causes of the Peasants’ War of 1525 and the long-term effects of its defeat. This will be of particular interest in this 500th anniversary year of that event.”

“A magnificent work of Marxist history of ancient and feudal society, and deserves wide recognition…. The essential case is that the rhythms of the rise and fall of political regimes, the Roman imperial, the Carolingian attempt to re-found the Empire, and the medieval monarchies, relate directly to the degree to which peasants were able to free themselves from exploitation, or not…. It was not the ruling class that made history, but the peasantry’s ability to fight back against exploitation that ultimately determined the character of an era. Along the way, Dees demolishes many a smug academic consensus…. These volumes may be long, but they are well written and robust.”

A “review of civilization’s events through the perspective of farmers…a powerful survey that does far more than recap common knowledge…surprisingly accessible, delightfully enlightening reading…. The often-startling, eye-opening, thought-provoking contentions are exceptional and hard-hitting…very highly recommended; ideally to a much wider audience than its scholarship, size, and subject would seem to indicate”

“Your agrarian and cultural-historical study is not only of fundamental importance for the circumstances in Memmingen and its surroundings, but through comparison with other European countries extremely exciting to read…. Your analysis, rich in detail, will acquire a very special meaning next year (500th anniversary of the 1525 Peasant War)…. A comprehensive appendix with chronology, money, weights and measures, and much more makes your study an important reference work…. We hope that your book will become known to a wide audience and find many interested readers.”

Translated from German

“Dees’ book is an important contribution. Whether or not the reader agrees with the approach,… there are too few writers that are prepared to challenge prevailing historical orthodoxies. Dees certainly does that, taking on historians, scientists, economists and political theorists in an often engaging and informed way. Most importantly, his book celebrates the struggles of ordinary people of the past, to inform those of the present.”