Title page from Arthur Young’s Travels in France during the Years 1787, 1788, 1789

Arthur Young’s Travels in France during the Years 1787, 1788, 1789

Arthur Young was an 18th century pioneer in the detailed observation of economic conditions in the countryside and the collection of statistical data relating to agriculture. He was extraordinarily lucky in being in France on the eve of and during the early part of the French Revolution. In his dairies he gives close observations of the social, political and economic conditions of the French countryside as it was convulsed by violent revolution.