First published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The essays in this collection examine agrarian transformation in Latin America and the role in this of peasants, with particular reference to Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Brazil and Central America. Among the issues covered are the impact of globalization and neo-liberal economic policies.

Examining how Marxist theory is lacking but much needed in a variety of analytical contexts, this book traces the theoretical maze in which Marxism currently finds itself, and from which it is trying to exit while remaining epistemologically intact. Scholar Tom Brass cogently argues that when Marxism is stripped of any or all of its core elements-such as class formation/consciousness/struggle, and a socialist transition-it ceases to be recognizable as Marxism at all. Consequently, the book constitutes an attempt by Marxist political economy to extricate itself from mistaken attempts to conflate it with the cultural turn, identity politics, bourgeois economics, or varieties of populism and nationalism, while grappling with the danger of not mapping Marxism in relation to those discourses.

The essays in this collection examine agrarian transformation in Latin America and the role in this of peasants, with particular reference to Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Brazil and Central America. Among the issues covered are the impact of globalization and neo-liberal economic policies.

Tracing the way in which the agrarian myth has emerged and re-emerged over the past century in ideology shared by populism, postmodernism and the political right, the argument in this book is that at the centre of this discourse about the cultural identity of 'otherness'/ 'difference' lies the concept of and innate 'peasant-ness'. In a variety of contextually-specific discursive forms, the 'old' populism of the 1890s and the nationalism and fascism in Europe, America and Asia during the 1920s and 1930s were all informed by the agrarian myth. The postmodern 'new' populism and the 'new' right, both of which emerged after the 1960s and consolidated during the 1990s, are also structured discursively by the agrarian myth, and with it the ideological reaffirmation of peasant essentialism.

Tracing the way in which the agrarian myth has emerged and re-emerged over the past century in ideology shared by populism, postmodernism and the political right, the argument in this book is that at the centre of this discourse about the cultural identity of 'otherness'/ 'difference' lies the concept of and innate 'peasant-ness'. In a variety of contextually-specific discursive forms, the 'old' populism of the 1890s and the nationalism and fascism in Europe, America and Asia during the 1920s and 1930s were all informed by the agrarian myth. The postmodern 'new' populism and the 'new' right, both of which emerged after the 1960s and consolidated during the 1990s, are also structured discursively by the agrarian myth, and with it the ideological reaffirmation of peasant essentialism.

Much writing about agragarian change in the Third World assumes that unfree relations are archaic forms, destined to be eliminated in the course of capitalist development. This text argues that the incidence of bonded labour is much greater than generally supposed, and that in certain situations rural employers prefer an unfree workforce.

Much writing about agragarian change in the Third World assumes that unfree relations are archaic forms, destined to be eliminated in the course of capitalist development. This text argues that the incidence of bonded labour is much greater than generally supposed, and that in certain situations rural employers prefer an unfree workforce.

This collection celebrates T.J. Byres' seminal contributions to the political economy of the agrarian question. Four essays build directly on h is work, and four complementary essays address peasant politics and communist strategy in North China in the 1920s; globalization and restructuring in the Indian food industry; foreign trade as a mechanism of economic retrogression in agriculture-constrained economics; and the reasons for China's success and Russia's failure at the end of the 20th century. Uniting the various themes of the essays is the demonstration of the continuing vitality and relevance of a critical, historical and comparative materialist analysis of agrarian question.

The essays in this collection focus on the reasons for and background to the emergence during the 1980s of the new farmers' movements in India. In addition to a more general consideration of the economic, political and theoretical dimensions of this development, there are case studies which cover the farmer's movements in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Karnataka.

Against the usual argument heard most frequently on the left, that there is no subject for a radical politics together with its form of political mobilization, Tom Brass asserts that there is - but in the absence of a radical leftist project, this subject has in the past transferred, and in many instances is still transferring, his/her support to the radical politics on offer from the other end of the ideological spectrum. The combination of, on the one hand, a globally expanding industrial reserve army, generating ever more intense competition in the labour markets of capitalism, and, on the other, the endorsement by many on the left not of class but rather of non-class identities espoused by the 'new' populist postmodernism, has fuelled what can only be described as a perfect political storm.

Since its inception, Development Studies has tended to restrict its critical enquiries to nations in the 'Third World.' The field's important studies of labour markets, who circulates within them, and the controversies such issues generate, have hitherto been confined 'lesser developed' societies. In this important collection, drawing from key texts over the course Tom Brass's career, these concerns are deftly deployed to examine how these same phenomena affect metropolitan capitalist countries.

With so many political establishments and economic institutions undergoing enormous changes, many economic theories are being called into question. The legitimacy of capitalism is being considered by socialist economists the world over, and critiques of Marxism are attempting to put the school of thought into a more modern context. Labor Regime Change in the Twenty-First Century calls into question the validity of various historical interpretations of capitalism, unfreedom and primitive accumulation based on current economic developments.

Using examples from different historical contexts, Class, Culture and the Agrarian Myth examines the relationship between class, nationalism, modernity and the agrarian myth. Essentialising rural identity, traditional culture and quotidian resistance, both aristocratic / plebeian and pastoral / Darwinian forms of agrarian myth discourse inform struggles waged 'from above' and 'from below', surfacing in peasant movements, film and travel writing.