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Although millions of Russians lived as serfs until the middle of the nineteenth century, little is known about their lives. Identifying and documenting the conditions of Russian serfs has proven difficult because the Russian state discouraged literacy among the serfs and censored public expressions of dissent. To date scholars have identified only twenty known Russian serf narratives. Four Russian Serf Narratives contains four of these accounts and is the first translated collection of autobiographies by serfs. Scholar and translator John MacKay brings to light for an English-language audience a diverse sampling of Russian serf narratives, ranging from an autobiographical poem to stories of adventure and escape. "Autobiography" (1785) recounts a highly educated serf's attempt to escape to Europe, where he hoped to study architecture. The long testimonial poem "News About Russia" (ca. 1849) laments the conditions under which the author and his fellow serfs lived. In "The Story of My Life and Wanderings" (1881) a serf tradesman tells of his attempt to simultaneously escape serfdom and captivity from Chechen mountaineers. The fragmentary "Notes of a Serf Woman" (1911) testifies to the harshness of peasant life with extraordinary acuity and descriptive power. These accounts offer readers a glimpse, from the point of view of the serfs themselves, into the realities of one of the largest systems of unfree labor in history. The volume also allows comparison with slave narratives produced in the United States and elsewhere, adding an important dimension to knowledge of the institution of slavery and the experience of enslavement in modern times.

Serfdom --- Serfs --- Servitude --- Forced labor --- Land tenure --- Slavery --- Villeinage --- History --- Law and legislation --- Persons

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World history --- Serfdom --- Servage --- History --- Histoire --- -Serfdom --- Servitude --- Forced labor --- Land tenure --- Slavery --- Villeinage --- Law and legislation --- -History --- Serfdom - History

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This book explores the intimate relationship between literature and class in England (and later Britain) from the Peasants' Revolt at the end of the fourteenth century to the impact of the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth. The book argues throughout that class cannot be seen as a modern phenomenon that occurred after the Industrial revolution but that class divisions and relations have always structured societies and that it makes sense to assume a historical continuity. The book explores a number of themes relating to class: class consciousness; class conflict; commercialisation; servitude; rebellion; gender relations; and colonisation. After outlining the history of class relations, five chapters explore the ways in which social class consciously and unconsciously influenced a series of writers: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Behn, Rochester, Defoe, Duck, Richardson, Burney, Blake and Wordsworth.

Social classes in literature. --- Class conflict. --- Class consciousness. --- Class. --- commerce. --- common. --- literature. --- rebellion. --- representation. --- servitude. --- social mobility.

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Jan Breman takes dispossession as his central theme in this ambitious analysis of labour bondage in India's changing political economy from 1962 to 2017. When, in a remote past, tribal and low-caste communities were attached to landowning households, their lack of freedom was framed as subsistence-oriented dependency. Breman argues that with colonial rule came the intrusion of capitalism into India's agrarian economy, leading to a decline in the idea of patronage in the relationship between bonded labour and landowner. Instead, servitude was reshaped as indebtedness. As labour became transformed into a commodity, peasant workers were increasingly pushed out of agriculture and the village but remained adrift in the wider economy. This footloose workforce is subjected to exploitation when their labour power is required and is left in a state of exclusion when it is surplus to demand. The outcome is progressive inequality that is thoroughly capitalist in nature.

Peonage --- Labor policy --- Working poor --- Capitalism --- Market economy --- Economics --- Profit --- Capital --- Poor --- Working class --- Labor --- State and labor --- Economic policy --- Bonded labor --- Debt, Servitude for --- Debt bondage --- Debt slavery --- Servitude --- Servitude for debt --- Contract labor --- Forced labor --- History. --- Employment --- Government policy

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Parallel to the abolition of Atlantic slavery, new forms of indentured labour stilled global capitalism's need for cheap, disposable labour. The famous 'coolie trade' - mainly Asian labourers transferred to French and British islands in the Indian Ocean, Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas, as well as to Portuguese colonies in Africa - was one of the largest migration movements in global history. Indentured contract workers are perhaps the most revealing example of bonded labour in the grey area between the poles of chattel slavery and 'free' wage labour. This interdisciplinary volume addresses historically and regionally specific cases of bonded labour relations from the 18th century to sponsorship systems in the Arab Gulf States today. »Dies ist ein wichtiges Buch, nicht nur für Migrationsforscher und Wirtschaftshistoriker, sondern für alle, die sich mit ökonomischen, sozialen und politischen Zusammenhängen im Kontext einer aktuellen Kapitalismusforschung auseinandersetzen. Das Buch wird nachdrücklich empfohlen.« Hermann Mückler, Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien, 147 (2017)

E-books --- Peonage --- Forced labor --- Slave labor --- Labor contract --- Labor policy --- Indentured servants --- History --- Forced labor. --- Compulsory labor --- Conscript labor --- Labor, Compulsory --- Labor, Forced --- Employees --- Colonialism. --- Culture. --- Ethnology. --- Global History. --- Globalization. --- History of Colonialism. --- History. --- Migration. --- Postcolonialism. --- Social History. --- Work. --- Labour; Colonialism; Migration; History; Culture; Globalization; Postcolonialism; Work; Global History; History of Colonialism; Social History; Ethnology --- Bonded labor --- Debt, Servitude for --- Debt bondage --- Debt slavery --- Servitude --- Servitude for debt --- Contract labor