James D. Fisher - The Enclosure of Knowledge: Books, Power & Agrarian Capitalism in Britain, 1660-1800

A really interesting study of how the development of capitalism saw the consolidation and enclosure of knowledge as well as land as a fundamental part of the process of transformation of power relations in the countryside. Fisher explores this by studying how knowledge became concentrated in the hands of the rising capitalist class in the form of books. Despite its price, this is a accessible book which sheds new light on the process whereby the English peasantry was destroyed in the name of agrarian capitalism.

I reviewed this book for the International Socialism Journal. You can read my review here.

Article on the book by the author.