First published in 1986. This collection of eight essays begins with a piece that constructs a preliminary argument concerning the position of the peasantry in the twin transitions: the first to industrialisation, and the second, towards socialism. In the poor developing country launching upon both simultaneously, the agrarian question bifurcates into two dichotomous sets of issues.

A critical review of the history of capitalism and socialism in relation to agriculture, reexamining the role of agriculture in political economy using ecological, historical, humanist, institutionalist, and Marxist methodologies. Suggests ways in which the original socialist project of developing a theory of political economy, which was sidetracked by industrialism, can be rejuvenated, using England as a case study. For students in environment and political science. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The papers in this volume, though covering a wide range of fields, from economic theory to economic history, the problems of socialist economies and the dynamics of Indian agriculture, have nonetheless a basic unity. This arises not only from the Marxist perspective underlying them but also from an attempt to engage with the present as history . This present , above all, is marked by the phenomenon of imperialism whose conceptual presence permeates many of the essays. Its role in the development of capitalism in the advanced countries, its need and attempt to recolonize the third world, the contradictions arising from the unresolved agrarian question in third-world societies, and the minimum conditions for their completing the long transition to emancipation: such are the issues which concern the author. The concepts of class and the mode of production are developed and used for exploring these issues. Utsa Patnaik is Professor of Economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. She has written extensively on political economy, capitalism and the agrarian question. Her publications include The Agrarian Question and the Development of Capitalism in India (1986), Peasant Class Differentiation (1987), Agrarian Relations and Accumulation (editor, 1990), and Chains of Servitude: Bondage and Slavery in India (joint editor, 1985).To [readers], the work will be valuable from the historical, analytical and academic perspectives. The book encapsulates almost all the major issues focused upon by Marxist political economists with regard to the Indian economy. The Telegraph