Of Seeds, Seasons, and Seas: Andrew Watson's Medieval Agrarian Revolution Forty Years Later

2014/11/27 by Paolo Squatriti · 39 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Agrarian society #Agricultural revolution #Agriculture #Archaeology #Colonialism, slavery, and trade #Economic history #Historical Economic and Social Studies #History #Islamic Studies and History #Watson

paper · doi:10.1017/s0022050714000904

published in The Journal of Economic History 74(4), 1205-1220 (Cambridge University Press)

openalex publication_date 2014/11/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21

Abstract

Since its publication in 1974, Andrew Watson's article “The Arab Agricultural Revolution and Its Diffusion, 700–1100,” has been used and cited widely by historians and archaeologists, many working in fields far removed from Watson's. This essay explores the nature of Watson's impact and attempts to explain it.

Citations

• Food and Foodways of Medieval Cairenes
• Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World
• Did the Ancients Know the Artichoke?
• Zooarchaeological evidence for Moslem and Christian improvements of sheep and cattle in Portugal
• A social analysis of irrigation in Al-Andalus: Nazari Granada (13th-15th centuries)
• Islam, the Mediterranean and the Rise of Capitalism
• Old World globalization and the Columbian exchange: comparison and contrast
• The Domestication of Artichoke and Cardoon: From Roman Times to the Genomic Age
• The Arab Agricultural Revolution and Its Diffusion, 700–1100
• Islamic Gardens and Landscapes
• Cross-Cultural Interaction and Periodization in World History
• Domestication of Plants in the Old World
• Plants and Progress: Rethinking the Islamic Agricultural Revolution
• Noria Pots in Spain

Cited by

• »I am a virgin woman and a virgin woman’s child« Critical Plant Theory and the Maiden Mother Conceit in Early Medieval Riddles
• Arab Agricultural Revolution [wikipedia]

Related

• Plants and Progress: Rethinking the Islamic Agricultural Revolution
• The Influence of Lynn White, jr.'s Medieval Technology and Social Change
• Animalising the Islamic Green Revolution: zooarchaeology and socio-ecological change in the Islamic Far West
• The Agricultural Revolution in New England
• Peasant Productivity and Welfare in The Middle Ages and Beyond