Framed within the common goal of advancing trade justice and South-North solidarity, The Fair Trade Handbook presents a broad interpretation of fair trade and a wide-ranging dialogue between different viewpoints. Canadian researchers in particular have advanced a transformative vision of fair trade, rooted in the cooperative movement and arguing for a more central role for Southern farmers and workers. Contributors to this book question the limits of fair trade against the broader structures of the capitalist, colonialist, racist, and patriarchal global economy. The debates and discussions are set within a critical development studies and critical political economy framework. However, this book will appeal to a wide range of readers, as it translates the key issues for a popular audience. Includes the graphic story 'a lively bean that brightens lives'!, by Bill Barrett and Curt Shoultz

Free trade does not make a significantly positive contribution to a society's well being, nor does real free trade exist. In Alternative Trade, Gavin Fridell confronts these assumptions through a passionate and rigorous appraisal of alternative trade and its imperfect legacy. Examining the history of alternative trade models - the International Coffee Agreement, the Canadian Wheat Board and the European-Caribbean banana regime - Fridell exposes the unbridgeable gap between "free trade" proclamations and the lack of actually existing free trade, arguing that the alternative trade models are much more socially efficient than what followed in their wake. Additionally, Fridell places politics, history, social change, class power and violence front-and-centre in his analysis and examines alternative trade within a broader social and historical context to uncover lessons for a more cooperative, socially just world order.