This book on the important question of village viability arose from several organizational innovations. It presents the important experience of intensive village studies conducted by anthropologists and sociologists and describes it with the views of development economists and administrators.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

One hundred kilometers from Seville, there is a small village, Marinaleda, that for the last thirty years has been at the center of a long struggle to create a communist utopia. In a story reminiscent of the Asterix books, Dan Hancox explores the reality behind the community where no one has a mortgage, sport is played in the Che Guevara stadium and there are monthly "Red Sundays" where everyone works together to clean up the neighbourhood. In particular he tells the story of the village mayor, Sanchez Gordillo, who in 2012 became a household name in Spain after leading raids on local supermarkets to feed the Andalucian unemployed.