Life, Work, Death and the Peasant by Bret Devereaux

Shares rank 28 of 60 articles by recommenders

A long, detailed look at the economics of premodern peasant farmers and their households, recommended as a realistic picture of pre-modern life.

6 people gave an opinion

Each figure is one person. RecommendsCriticizes

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The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.

Each mark is one comment

Comprehensive treatment of peasant life
“Theres a nice and comprehnsive treatment of this topic”
Comment from 7 Dec 2025 in “The past was not that cute”
“how life was really like for pre-modern peasants”
Comment from 7 Dec 2025 in “The past was not that cute”
Realistic view of peasant labor
“based on it it rarely was a "two person's job" only.”
Comment from 7 Dec 2025 in “The past was not that cute”
“how life was really like for pre-modern peasants”
Comment from 7 Dec 2025 in “The past was not that cute”

All 6 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.

“is a must read for anyone who benefits from modern technology, IMO”

RecommendsComment from 30 Aug 2026 in “What we want is a hunter gatherer lifestyle with space age tools (2022)”

“I think that one its overly focused on the household”

MixedComment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Why medieval city-builder video games are historically inaccurate (2020)”

“a long, detailed look at the economics of premodern peasant farmers and their households”

RecommendsComment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Why medieval city-builder video games are historically inaccurate (2020)”

“Theres a nice and comprehnsive treatment of this topic”

RecommendsComment from 7 Dec 2025 in “The past was not that cute”

“based on it it rarely was a "two person's job" only.”

RecommendsComment from 7 Dec 2025 in “The past was not that cute”

“how life was really like for pre-modern peasants”

RecommendsComment from 7 Dec 2025 in “The past was not that cute”

Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.

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