Geography is not destiny: geography, institutions and literacy in England, 1837–63

• DOI: 10.1093/oep/gpu020
• Publication Date: 2014-06-27T00:23:10Z
• Authors: Gregory Clark; Rowena Gray
• Keywords: Destiny (ISS module); Language geography; Social geography

Geography made rural society in the south-east of England unequal. Economies scale grain growing created a farmer elite and many landless labourers. In pastoral north-west, contrast, family farms dominated, with few hired labourers modest income disparities. Engerman Sokoloff (2012) argue that such differences social structure between large plantations southern Americas, farming north, explain rise schooling its absence south. We show, however, literacy across 1810-45 was not determined by geographically driven inequality. There were substantial region, but culture geography. is destiny.