In this concise analysis of the origins of capitalism, of which large sections were published previously in various articles between 1994 and 1998 , Dr Wood first examines the main historiography, of both classical and Marxist origin, and assesses the famous Marxist debates among writers such as Paul Sweezy, Maurice Dobb, Robert Brenner, Perry Anderson and E.P. Thompson. In her own analysis, she refutes these existing accounts and concludes that the origins lie in English agrarian capitalism, challenging the association of capitalism with cities and bourgeois values.