Field study of the impact of land reform on living conditions of peasant farmers and rural communitys in Ethiopia - comments on the 1975 legislation; gives a historical account of the evolution of social structures, agrarian structures, commerce and customary law towards a capitalist rural economy; analyses the role of social movements and starvation in the revolutionary process, land allotment, creation of farmers associations and womens organizations, etc.; includes three case studies of land reform patterns. Bibliography, statistical tables.

A study of peasant land-owning and its attendant social and economic changes during the making of modern Egypt. This digital edition was derived from ACLS Humanities E-Book's (http: //www.humanitiesebook.org) online version of the same title

A study of peasant land-owning and its attendant social and economic changes during the making of modern Egypt. This digital edition was derived from ACLS Humanities E-Book's (http: //www.humanitiesebook.org) online version of the same title

Nowhere on earth is the relationship between man and land more complicated and seemingly as intractable as in South Asia. India alone, with some 1.37 billion people, most of whom work the land for a living, has known famine and scarcity on a scale unknown elsewhere. This has mocked humanity, threatened world peace and urged need to investigate causes and remedies. Chapters in this volume look at issues of land, tenure, and peasant from a variety of different disciplines-history, anthropology, economics, geography, political science, sociology. They furnish fresh insights on discrete localities and problems. Each is by a specialist who deals with intricate ways in which land and lord and labour have been combined and changed. Poverty and scarcity are not the same. Abolishing poverty by economic development alone, without coming to grips with conflicts, can beg the question and end in futility. Contributors emphasize the fallacy of thinking that, with just a little more money, fertilizer or know-how (often coming from an alien environment), problems of land tenure and distribution can be resolved. Socio-economic engineering, however well intentioned, is prone to end in frustration and failure, quite oblivious of how or why.

Field study of the impact of land reform on living conditions of peasant farmers and rural communitys in Ethiopia - comments on the 1975 legislation; gives a historical account of the evolution of social structures, agrarian structures, commerce and customary law towards a capitalist rural economy; analyses the role of social movements and starvation in the revolutionary process, land allotment, creation of farmers associations and womens organizations, etc.; includes three case studies of land reform patterns. Bibliography, statistical tables.

James C. Scott places the critical problem of the peasant household—subsistence—at the center of this study. The fear of food shortages, he argues persuasively, explains many otherwise puzzling technical, social, and moral arrangements in peasant society, such as resistance to innovation, the desire to own land even at some cost in terms of income, relationships with other people, and relationships with institutions, including the state. Once the centrality of the subsistence problem is recognized, its effects on notions of economic and political justice can also be seen. Scott draws from the history of agrarian society in lower Burma and Vietnam to show how the transformations of the colonial era systematically violated the peasants’ “moral economy” and created a situation of potential rebellion and revolution. Demonstrating keen insights into the behavior of people in other cultures and a rare ability to generalize soundly from case studies, Scott offers a different perspective on peasant behavior that will be of interest particularly to political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, and Southeast Asianists. “The book is extraordinarily original and valuable and will have a very broad appeal. I think the central thesis is correct and compelling.”—Clifford Geertz “In this major work, … Scott views peasants as political and moral actors defending their values as well as their individual security, making his book vital to an understanding of peasant politics.”—Library Journal