Peasant Europe - 9781138994836

First published in 2006. Western Europe preoccupied with the problems of international relations, industry, and the future of armaments, is sometimes in danger of overlooking the fact that more than half the entire population of that Continent is composed of peasants. The immense territories of this hundred million of cultivators (outside the frontiers of the U.S.S.R.), whose bent backs till the soil of the ocean of peasant-lands, stretch from the Black Sea to the Baltic, forming a natural barrier between East and West. The peoples who inhabit that land of farmsteads-Poles, Ukrainians, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Southern Slavs, and the rest-together represent the largest single unit in Europe, split by artificial political walls, but united by the bonds of common interests and, in war or peace, usually a common fate. Those peasant territories remain to-day almost virgin soil for the world's manufacturers, populated by millions of potential customers clad in home-made clothing and living on the produce of their soil. This classic work examines the modern history of the Europe from an unusual perspective.