Fifty years after the publication of Eric Wolf’s celebrated Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, and forty years after the publication of his path-breaking Europe and the People Without History, this book offers a much-needed critical assessment and update of Wolf’s contribution to the study of the peasantry and its relationship to capitalism, the state, and imperialism. This book provides a comprehensive evaluation of Wolf’s premises, methodology, and understanding of the peasantry, and its relationship to the rise of capitalism and the modern state. The authors analyse Wolf’s theoretical approach and, by building on his work in Europe and the People Without History especially, argue their own position concerning the dynamics of the peasantry in relation to capitalism, state, class, and imperialism. Further, the text aims to answer the agrarian question more widely, focusing on agrarian society and the political role of the peasantry in contested transitions to capitalism and to modes beyond capitalism. This requires, the authors argue, an analysis of class struggle and of the resources, material and discursive, that different classes can bring to bear on this struggle. Based on well-founded theoretical premises, the book focuses on the contested rise of capitalism in the global North, the development of core–periphery relations in the global political economy, and the place of the peasantry in these dynamics. The book presents case studies of transitions to agrarian capitalism in the British Isles, France, Germany, Japan, and the USA. The book will be of great interest to students and researchers in the areas of peasant studies, rural politics, agrarian studies, development, and political ecology.

"Fifty years after the publication of Eric Wolf's celebrated Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, and forty years after the publication of his path-breaking Europe and the People Without History, this book offers a much-needed critical assessment and update of Wolf's contribution to the study of the peasantry and its relationship to capitalism, the state, and imperialism. This book provides a comprehensive evaluation of Wolf's premises, methodology and understanding of the peasantry, and its relationship to the rise of capitalism and the modern state. The authors analyse Wolf's theoretical approach, and, by building on his work in Europe and the People Without History especially, argue their own position in relation to the dynamics of the peasantry in relation to capitalism, state, class, and imperialism. Further, the text aims to answer the agrarian question more widely, focusing on agrarian society and the political role of the peasantry in contested transitions to capitalism and to modes beyond capitalism. This requires, the authors argue, an analysis of class struggle and of the resources, material and discursive, that different classes can bring to bear on this struggle. Based on well-founded theoretical premises, the book focuses on the contested rise of capitalism in the global North, the development of core-periphery relations in the global political economy, and the place of the peasantry in these dynamics. The book presents case studies of transitions to agrarian capitalism in the British Isles, France, Germany, Japan, and the USA. This book complements a 'companion' volume addressing peasant dynamics in the global South. The book will be of great interest to students and researchers in the areas of peasant studies, rural politics, agrarian studies, development and political ecology"--

This book utilises a new theoretical approach to understand the dynamics of the peasantry, and peasant resistance, in relation to capitalism, state, class, and imperialism in the global South. In this companion volume to Peasants, Capitalism, and the Work of Eric R. Wolf, the authors further develop their thinking on agrarian transitions to capitalism, the development of imperialism, and the place of the peasantry in these dynamics, with special reference to the global South in an era of politico-ecological crisis. Focusing on the political role of the peasantry in contested transitions to capitalism and to modes of production outside of, and beyond, capitalism, the book contends that an understanding of these dynamics requires an analysis of class struggle and of the resources, material and discursive, that different classes can bring to bear on this struggle. The book focuses on the rise of capitalism in the global South within the context of imperial subordination to the global North, and the place of the peasantry in shaping and resisting these dynamics. The book presents case studies of contested transitions to agrarian capitalism in Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, and South Asia. It also examines the case of transition to a post-capitalist mode of production in Cuba. The book concludes with an assessment of the nature of capitalism and imperialism within the context of the contemporary politico-ecological crisis, and the potential role of the peasantry as agent of emancipatory change towards social and environmental sustainability. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers in the areas of peasant studies, rural politics, agrarian studies, development, and political ecology.

This collection of essays was devised by the author to study how anthropology brought the study of complex societies and world systems in to its purview.

'The intention of this work is to show that European expansion not only transformed the historical trajectory of non-European societies but also reconstituted the historical accounts of these societies before European intervention. It asserts that anthropology must pay more attention to history.' (AMAZON)

"Women, the body and primitive accumulation"--Cover.

In 2007, for the first time in human history, a majority of the world’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 ‘agrarian question’, 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’s farmers and rural workers.