Publisher description

Publisher description

This is the first world history of peasants. Peasants in World History analyzes the multiple transformations of peasant life through history by focusing on three primary areas: the organization of peasant societies, their integration within wider societal structures, and the changing connections between local, regional and global processes. Peasants have been a vital component in human history over the last 10,000 years, with nearly one-third of the world’s population still living a peasant lifestyle today. Their role as rural producers of ever-new surpluses instigated complex and often-opposing processes of social and spatial change throughout the world. Eric Vanhaute frames this social change in a story of evolving peasant frontiers. These frontiers provide a global comparative-historical lens to look at the social, economic and ecological changes within village-systems, agrarian empires and global capitalism. Bringing the story of the peasantry up through the modern period and looking to the future, the author offers a succinct overview with students in mind. This book is recommended reading to anyone interested in the history and future of peasantries and is a valuable addition to undergraduate and graduate courses in World History, Global Economic History, Global Studies and Rural Sociology.

A radical new appraisal of the role of the peasant in post-socialist China, putting recent debates into historical perspective.

This classic work in subaltern studies portrays the peasant insurgency in British India from the peasant's viewpoint.

Undoing the Revolution looks at the way rural underclasses ally with out-of-power elites to overthrow their governments—only to be shut out of power when the new regime assumes control. Vasabjit Banerjee first examines why peasants need to ally with dissenting elites in order to rebel. He then shows how conflict resolution and subsequent bargains to form new state institutions re-empower allied elites and re-marginalize peasants. Banerjee evaluates three different agrarian societies during distinct time periods spanning the twentieth century: revolutionary Mexico from 1910 to 1930; late-colonial India from 1920 until 1947; and White-dominated Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) from the mid-1960s to 1980. This comparative approach also allows examination of both the underclass need for elite participation and the variety of causes that elites use to incentivize peasant classes to participate, extending from religious-ethnic identity and common political targets to the peasants’ and elites’ own economic grievances. Undoing the Revolution demonstrates that both international and domestic investors in cash crops, natural resources, and finance can ally with peasant rebels; and, after threatened or actual state collapse, they can bargain with each other to select new state institutions.

This fresh and up-to-date interpretation of India's rich and extraordinary history, written by a leading authority in the field, explores themes in ancient, medieval and especially modern India. Peter Robb's accessible study analyses India's civilizations, empires and regions through the ages, and now also evaluates present-day developments and opportunities. A History of India, Second Edition • examines the relationships between politics, religious belief, social order, environment and economic change • assesses, from c. 1860, British colonialism, Indian nationalism and nation-building, popular protest movements, religious revivals, and re-inventions of caste, community and gender • discusses long-term economic development, the impact of global trade, and the origins of rural poverty • has been revised in the light of the latest scholarship, and now features a Chronology as well as a fully reworked final chapter which brings the story up to the present day and carefully considers India's prospects and new roles in the world. Centred around clearly expressed and well argued topics, issues and explanations, A History of India remains the ideal introduction for all those who wish to understand the drama and vitality of India's past, its present situation and its future challenges.