To what extent did World War II change the outlook and nature of European post-war farming and the countryside? Did the war itself produce change or did it simply accelerate an ongoing process? These are the core questions posed by this book. One of the essentials for a country at war is food, its production, distribution, and consumption. A common experience during wars has been food scarcity, high prices, and increasing farming profits. Unlike other histories of Europe's twentieth-century wars, this book concentrates on peasants and farmers. This anthology draws on the expertise of economic historians and other social scientists, exploring a number of themes in 12 European countries in the years prior to, during, and after World War II. This diversity of approach has its strengths, especially since the countries represent different long-term experiences. The reader might wish for future research that makes it easier to compare like with like, to the extent this is possible. But such an exercise would require more statistical material than is yet available for some of the countries.

The collected chapters consider a variety of themes that can be grouped under three headings. Two opening chapters study the first question, which is the effect of war on agricultural output. Federico compares agricultural output and trade in agricultural goods in the period after World War II to a prediction based on an extrapolation from the period 1870–1913. This exercise establishes three stylized facts: first, European agriculture recovered quickly after the two world wars, within nine years after World War I, and seven years after World War II. Secondly, the Great Depression had little impact on agricultural output, in contrast to its devastating influence on total GDP and trade in agricultural goods. Finally, the 1950s marked a major discontinuity, especially in agricultural gross output, which surged far beyond the forecast. The immediate cause was an acceleration in Total Factor Productivity growth as European agriculturalists used (American) technology to substitute for labor. The resulting efficiency gains were not passed along to consumers in the form of lower prices, thanks to agricultural policy.

Brassley continues this first theme by providing quantitative evidence on international trade in agricultural products, 1935–1955. Agricultural trade was bound to exhibit patterns that bore little resemblance to the complementary trade between industrial and agro-exporting countries. Brassley then considers the role of war on both potential and actual food shortages in belligerent nations. Offer has argued that food shortages were a principal factor behind German defeat in World War I. The United Kingdom was even more import-dependent in 1939 but confident that its naval power would ensure continual food imports. At the start of World War II Germany was, on the other hand, much less import-dependent but also less confident of finding wartime food supplies. Brassley shows that both the United Kingdom and Germany correctly foresaw the second war's effects on their food supplies, with Germany experiencing food shortages only in the last year of the war. Unlike the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy did not manage to maintain prewar import levels. The Eastern European exporters, Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary increased their exports to Germany from the war's start but already by 1940 they were falling and from 1942 onwards they were only at about 10 percent of their prewar level. Varga illuminates the latter development for Hungary. Since the early 1930s Hungary had been increasingly connected to Germany's Grossraumwirtschaft. This went hand in hand with German support for Hungarian hopes to retake territories lost in the 1920 peace treaty. After having regained over one-half of those lost territories between 1938 and 1941, Hungary's food balance tipped. Domestic demand for food further increased following the proclamation of an intensive armament program. The attack on the Soviet Union laid further pressure on Hungarian external demands.

Pan-Montojo discusses Spanish agriculture in the period 1931–1955. Spanish agricultural growth took off only at the start of the 1960s. Spain shared with most other Western countries the experience of regulated agrarian markets and the deep transformation of the rural world during that time period. Franco's authoritarian regime caused a severe setback to Spanish agriculture which increased the gap Spanish productivity and that of other Mediterranean countries such as Italy and France.

Many chapters touch on the role of state policy in shaping agriculture. Moser and Varley focus on this question, considering the role of corporatist state-farmer relationships for the modernization of the agricultural sector. The concept of corporatism is, of course, associated with fascist and authoritarian regimes. But in the interwar period, and for much of the twentieth century, corporatism was a significant principle of governance in liberal capitalist societies like Switzerland. The relationship between the Swiss state and the Swiss Farmers’ Union, and the educational and scientific community from the 1930s can be defined as an inclusive corporatist strategy. In contrast, the young Irish state opted for a de facto strategy of excluding the extant Irish Farmers’ Federation from influence. The organizational fragmentation of rural Ireland lasted for most of the war in spite of several attempts at healing the wounds between government and farmers’ representatives.

Short describes the social impact of state control of agriculture in Britain, which is normally hailed as a great success. The wartime control was effectuated through the Country War Agricultural Committees (the “War Ags”). The War Ags managed to overcome an earlier legacy of farmer distrust by working through influential local leaders respected by their farming peers.

A final theme consists of rural identity and the way farmers and others saw their role in the war economy. Gerhard argues that World War II and the Nazi period as a whole was simply a time out from agrarian change rather than the accelerator of it. The close political ties between the Nazi party and dissatisfied peasants were a particular feature of German agriculture under the Nazis, with comprehensive rural ideology of Blut und Boden forming a pillar of Nazi ideology. Griffiths examines the perception of agricultural enterprise and focuses on the enhanced reputation which British farmers came to enjoy in the postwar period. “In keeping the country fed during wartime, the farmers also reaped a crop of goodwill.” Wartime experience convinced Britons that agriculture was a successful, modern industry. The war also taught British farmers’ to think of themselves as a group with particular interests to be pursued in the sphere of public policy.

French farmers, on the other hand, emerged from the war with a battered image. This was very different from the aftermath of World War I when the peasant class was considered nothing short of heroic. Lynch notes that French peasants proved unable to feed the nation during World War II. With German control of French coasts, imports from neutral and allied countries became impossible, leading to rationing, steep price increases, and a black market. With France officially out of the war, tension between urban and rural folk could not be subsumed under a feeling of shared struggle against a common enemy.