This volume explores how reforms to Mexico's agrarian legislation changed the ejido's traditional role as the principal economic and political agent in the countryside.

In Mexico the term ejido is applied to agricultural lands held collectively by agrarian communities. In this book, the ejido becomes a point of departure for a detailed examination of the whole gamut of problems in rural Mexico--land distribution and tenure, education, agricultural credit, and political organization and social control. Finally, the ejido is evaluated in relation to land reform and the future economic and social organization of Mexico. Originally published in 1937. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Contributors to this anthology give us a close look at how Mexico's rural reforms of the early 1990s have operated, and how the approximately 25 million Mexicans still living in the countryside are responding to the ending of Mexico's 50-year experiment with communal land.