Proto-industrialization revisited: demography social structure and modern domestic industry.

This article seeks to assess the rich yield of empirical literature over the last fifteen years on three important aspects of the original hypotheses about proto-industrialization [in Europe]. Important modifications are introduced into the existing demo-economic model of proto-industrialization. The hitherto neglected questions of the social groups engaged in proto-industrialization and the interpenetration of agriculture and domestic industry are then subjected to systematic investigation. The final section of the article discusses the simultaneous coexistence and competition between proto-industry or domestic industry on the one hand and factory industry on the other which endured well into the twentieth century. (SUMMARY IN FRE AND GER) (EXCERPT)