Robert Paul Brenner (/ˈbrɛnər/; born November 28, 1943) is an American economic historian.
He is a professor emeritus of history and director of the Center for Social Theory and Comparative History at UCLA,[4] editor of the socialist journal Against the Current, and editorial committee member of New Left Review.
[3] Brenner contributed to a debate among Marxists on the "Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism",[5] emphasizing the importance of the transformation of agricultural production in Europe, especially in the English countryside, rather than the rise of international trade as the main cause of the transition.
[6] His influential 1976 article, Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe, started the Brenner debate.
In his introduction to the book, Rodney Hilton writes, "Brenner strongly emphasizes the class struggle rather than developments in the forces of production as being determinant of the various historical developments in the countries of late mediaeval and early modern Europe".