Overview

How and why does Denmark have one of the richest, most equal, and happiest societies in the world today? Historians have often pointed to developments from the late nineteenth century, when small peasant farmers worked together through agricultural cooperatives, whose exports of butter and bacon rapidly gained a strong foothold on the British market. This book presents a radical retelling of this story, placing (largely German-speaking) landed elites—rather than the Danish peasantry—at center stage. After acquiring estates in Denmark, these elites imported and adapted new practices from outside the kingdom, thus embarking on an ambitious program of agricultural reform and sparking a chain of events that eventually led to the emergence of Denmark’s famous peasant cooperatives in 1882. A Land of Milk and Butter presents a new interpretation of the origin of these cooperatives with striking implications for developing countries today.  

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9780226549507

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The success of butter exports in the second half of the nineteenth century propelled Denmark from relative poverty on a development path which transformed it into one of the wealthiest European countries. This book puts forward a novel interpretation of this success story that offers relevant insights for would-be imitators of the 'Danish model.' --Giovanni Federico, Universit� di Pisa In this highly original book, Lampe and Sharp convincingly argue that the contribution of cooperatives has been exaggerated, and that they mark the end point of a long period of modernization of Danish agriculture, rather than its beginning. Instead they show that the real novelty was how a landed elite from the mid-eighteenth century became successful as entrepreneurs, changing the nature of traditional farming by creating a modern dairy system and selling butter on international markets. Explaining how rural elites became catalysts for rather than obstacles to wider economic and political change, this book will interest development economists and economic historians alike. --James Simpson, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Author Information

Markus Lampe is professor of economic and social history at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Paul Sharp is professor of business and economics at the Historical Economics and Development Group, University of Southern Denmark, and the co-author of An Economic History of Europe: Knowledge, Institutions and Growth, 600 to the Present.

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