Richard C. Hoffman's monumental study of rural life in medieval eastern Europe focuses on one region, the Duchy of Wroclaw, from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries. The duchy is in many ways a microcosm of medieval European society, and thus Hoffman's analysis addresses issues central to a broader understanding of a vanished society. His analysis of the records of the Duchy of Wroclaw challenges the western stereotypes of east central Europe that have been imposed on its medieval past by modern nationalisms.
Honorable Mention, Wallace K. Ferguson Prize of the Canadian Historical Association.

Richard Hoffmann is Professor at York University in Toronto, Ontario, and has a long-standing interest in fishery and the history of fishing. His previous book, Land, Liberties and Lordship in a Late Medieval Countryside (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989) won the Herbert Baxter Adams prize of the American Historical Association, and honourable mention for the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize of the Canadian Historical Association.

Richard C. Hoffmann's profile page

• Winner, Winner of the 1990 Herbert Baxter Adams Prize of the American Historical Association
• Winner of the 1990 Herbert Baxter Adams Prize of the American Historical Association