ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews some key questions concerning concepts of agrarian transition and their applications. It discusses T. J. Byres's rich comparative history of transition from agriculture to industry. The transition from feudalism to capitalism, especially in England, has demonstrated a particular potency because it is generally regarded as the first agrarian transition and was the one most familiar to Karl Marx, the principal basis of his sketch of primitive accumulation. The challenges to analysis that the diversity and complexity of current agrarian change present cannot be grasped by regarding inherited notions of transition as simply false 'predictions', hence discarding what they offer to inform investigation of current realities, all concerning class formation, class struggle and how, and how much, accumulation proceeds. In short, much of their approach to framing the central questions of agrarian political economy remains valid, even if some of the answers provided might be found wanting as historical interpretation or applications to contemporary realities or both.
