The work of A. V. Chayanov is today drawing more attention among Western scholars than ever before. Largely ignored in his native Russia because they differed from Marxist-Leninist theory, and neglected in the West for more than forty years, Chayanov's sophisticated theories were at last published in English in 1966. That trenchant is reprinted in this Wisconsin paperback edition, which includes a new introduction by the sociologist Teodor Shanin, of the University of Manchester, one of the world's leading Chayanov scholars. The Wisconsin edition will be essential reading for political scientists, anthropologists, and all whose interests include peasant studies, Third World development, and women's studies. "The past two decades have seen the emergence of a whole new field called 'peasant studies' and, along with those of Karl Marx, Chayanov's ideas have been central to its development. . . . The publishers are to be commended for re-issuing the book with both old and new introductions and making it available as an affordable paperback for students. The work is a classic."--Times Higher Education Supplement

A classic in its field, Bread and Democracy in Germany has been widely praised since its publication in 1943 for its account of German political and economic development. In his preface, Alexander Gerschenkron states: "The primary purpose of this study is to show, first, how, before 1914, the machinery of Junker protectionism is agriculture, coupled with the Junker philosophy... delayed the development of democratic institutions in Germany; and second, how the Junkers contrived to escape almost unscathed from the German revolution of 1918 and how this fact contributed to the constitutional weakness and subsequent disintegration of the Weimar Republic." Emphasizing the importance of the problem of German agriculture in its relation to democratic reconstruction, Gerschenkron asserts that "the political attitude of farmers in several European countries had a decisive influence on the fate of European democracy. Nowhere is this more true than in Germany. The German farmers bear their full share of responsibility for the advent of fascism in that country."

Henry Bernstein argues that class dynamics should be the starting point of any analysis of agrarian change. Providing an accessible introduction to agrarian political economy, he shows clearly how the argument for "bringing class back in" provides an alternative to inherited conceptions of the agrarian question. He also ably illustrates what is at stake in different ways of thinking about class dynamics and the effects of agrarian change in today's globalized world. CONTENTS: Introduction: The Political Economy of Agrarian Change. Production and Productivity. Origins of Early Development of Capitalism. Colonialism and Capitalism. Farming and Agriculture, Local and Global. Neoliberal Globalization and World Agriculture. Capitalist Agriculture and Non-Capitalist Farmers? Class Formation in the Countryside. Complexities of Class.