This regional study examines the declining fortunes of a craft town on the Upper Rhine from 1450 to 1530, in the context of its relations with the country communities around it. In the debate on the transition between feudalism and capitalism in this period, rival interpretations have focused on town and country in isolation from each other. Tom Scott has used the techniques of historical and economic geography to examine them as a totality, consciously writing regional history, but also contributing to the wider history and theory of revolution as he extends these techniques to analyse popular protest.