PositiveThe Wall Street JournalMr. Evans offers an interesting discussion of how various forms of serfdom disappeared, even as the essence of rural immiseration generally did not. He conveys the degradation of existence for the emergent working class of the cities with controlled pathos yet without acknowledging the improvements in living standards that took place in advanced countries during the last decades of the century ... Evidently, Mr. Evans has not internalized A.J.P. Taylor’s quip that no book should rival the Bible in length. He covers a host of phenomena in exquisite detail while seldome venturing a statistical summary. Nevertheless, he writes with admirable narrative power and possesses a wonderful eye for local color; few readers will complain ... His vast erudition allows him to discuss the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans, the Iberian peninsula, or Scandinavia as knowledgeably as the principal West European nation-states.
