25.In the early 1950‘s，historians who studied preindustrial Europe (which we may define here as Europe in the period from roughly 1300 to 1800) began，for the first time in large numbers，to investigate more of the preindustrial European population than the 2 or 3 percent who comprised the political and social elite：the kings，generals，judges，nobles，bishops，and local magnates who had hitherto usually filled history books.