Peasants and globalization : political economy, rural transformation and the agrarian question / edited by A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi and Cristóbal Kay.

"First published in 2009. Transferred to Digital Printing 2010."--T.p. verso of paperback ed

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Pt. 1. Peasant Livelihoods and the Agrarian Question -- 1. The agrarian question: peasants and rural change / A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi and Cristobal Kay -- Pt. 2. Historical Perspectives on Agrarian Change -- 2. Peasants and the market imperative: the origins of capitalism / Ellen Meiksins Wood -- 3. The landlord class, peasant differentiation, class struggle and the transition to capitalism: England, France and Prussia compared / Terence J. Byres -- 4. Nineteenth century imperialism and structural transformation in colonized countries / Amiya Kumar Bagchi -- 5. The invisible hand and the visible foot: peasants, dispossession and globalization / Farshad Araghi -- 6. Peasant struggles for land and agrarian reform in Latin America / Miguel Teubal -- Pt. 3. Contemporary Perspectives on Agrarian Change -- 7. The globalization of manufacturing production: Warrenite fantasies and uneven and unequal realities / Ray Kiely -- 8. Gender justice, land and the agrarian question in Southern Africa / Bridget O'Laughlin -- 9. The political economy of land and the agrarian question in an era of neoliberal globalization / A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Cristobal Kay and Saturnino M. Borras, Jr. -- 10. Agrarian questions from transition to globalization / Henry Bernstein -- 11. Southern question: agrarian questions of labour and capital / Michael I. Watts -- 12. Food sovereignty, social reproduction and the agrarian question / Philip McMichael -- Pt. 4. Agrarian Question, Past and Present -- 13. Neoliberal globalization, the traits of rural accumulation and rural politics: the agrarian question in the twenty-first century / A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi and Cristobal Kay.

In 2007, for the first time in human history, a majority of the world{u2019}s population lived in cities. However, on a global scale, poverty overwhelmingly retains a rural face. This book assembles an unparalleled group of internationally-eminent scholars in the field of rural development and social change in order to explore historical and contemporary processes of agrarian change and transformation and their consequent impact upon the livelihoods, poverty and well-being of those who live in the countryside. The book provides a critical analysis of the extent to which rural development trajectories have in the past and are now promoting a change in rural production processes, the accumulation of rural resources, and shifts in rural politics, and the implications of such trajectories for peasant livelihoods and rural workers in an era of globalization. Peasants and Globalization thus explores continuity and change in the debate on the {u2018}agrarian question{u2019}, from its early formulation in the late 19th century to the continuing relevance it has in our times, including chapters from Terence Byres, Amiya Bagchi, Ellen Wood, Farshad Araghi, Henry Bernstein, Saturnino M Borras, Ray Kiely, Michael Watts and Philip McMichael. Collectively, the contributors argue that neoliberal social and economic policies have, in deepening the market imperative governing the contemporary world food system, not only failed to tackle to underlying causes of rural poverty but have indeed deepened the agrarian crisis currently confronting the livelihoods of peasant farmers and rural workers. This crisis does not go unchallenged, as rural social movements have emerged, for the first time, on a transnational scale. Confronting development policies that are unable to reduce, let alone eliminate, rural poverty, transnational rural social movements are attempting to construct a more just future for the world{u2019}s farmers and rural workers.