Eric Hobsbawm gelangt in seinem Buch Das Zeitalter der Extreme zur Ansicht, dass der enorme Bauernschwund der weitreichendste Wandel im Westen des 20. Jahrhunderts war.
In his The Age of Extremes, Eric Hobsbawm argued that the greatest change in the West in the 20 th century was the vast reduction in the number of people employed as farmers.