17世纪英国城市化与非农化——危机下的社会转型

The Rural Labor Migration and Urbanization in Britain during the Seventeenth Century Crisis

17世纪英国遭遇了政治危机,在一定程度上也经历了经济危机;但较之欧陆国家,英国适时地调整政治、经济结构,恢复生产秩序,成功地将危机带来的挑战转变为一种历史发展机遇。正是这一次成功使英国脱颖而出,乡村工业和城市化水平都得到较大提高,赶超了欧洲大陆的其他国家,从而奠定了向现代工业社会过渡的领先地位,工业革命则是这一历史进程的逻辑后果。因此,"17世纪"是英国与欧洲大陆国家缩小差距、实现超越的一个关键时期,在英国史上占有非常重要的历史地位。

Britain went through a political crisis as well as an economic crisis to some extent during the seventeenth century.Different from other European countries,Britain succeeded in converting the challenges into a historic development opportunity by adjusting the political and economic structure andrecovering the production sequence.As a result,Britain surpassed other European countries both in the rural industry and urbanization,thereby laying its leading position in the transition to a modern industrial society.The industrial revolution was exactly the logic consequence of such historical course.So the seventeenth century was a great important phase,which had witnessed the English shortened the gap to other advanced European countries,and even exceeded them successfully in the end.