Read William Cobbett on the Rural Economy. Written in the early 1800s the man talks sense.
William Cobbett, Rural Rides
William Cobbett was born in 1763, the son of a farmer and innkeeper. He was in the army between 1784 and 1791, but blowing the whistle on military corruption forced him to flee to America. There he began his career as a journalist, publishing 12 volumes of attacks on American democracy and becoming known as Peter Porcupine. He returned to England in 1800 and began publishing a weekly newsletter, the Political Register in 1802. He saw himself as a champion of traditional rural society against the transformation due to the Industrial Revolution. Philosophically deeply conservative, he was active in grassroots radicalism and supported labourers' riots in 1830, leading to him being tried for sedition but aquitted. He was elected to Parliament in 1832 but died in 1835.
