This book is not only for economists. It is aimed at every person interested in local development, regardless of their academic background or practical experience. Read it as a history, as ethnography, as anthropology. But also read it as an economic analysis – perhaps the most honest and well-documented analysis of local economic development you will find for this region. Because, in the end, economics is not abstract models and statistics – it is people who work, create, collaborate, and adapt.

For sociologists, the book offers excellent material for studying the social organization of labor, gender divisions, and social mobility in small communities. For anthropologists, the book is a manual for studying material culture and technological knowledge. For geographers, the book provides detailed documentation of the spatial organization of economic activity.

For historians, the book is a valuable archive of primary sources documenting the economic life of a mountain community during a critical transition period. For political scientists, the book highlights how institutions – both formal and informal – shape economic opportunities and constraints. The relationship between community, state, and market is presented with particular clarity on the pages of this book.