Fifty Years of Peasant Wars in Latin America

by Leigh Binford (Editor), Lesley Gill (Editor), Steve Striffler (Editor)

Overview

Informed by Eric Wolf’s Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, published in 1969, this book examines selected peasant struggles in seven Latin American countries during the last fifty years and suggests the continuing relevance of Wolf’s approach. The seven case studies are preceded by an Introduction in which the editors assess the continuing relevance of Wolf’s political economy. The book concludes with Gavin Smith’s reflection on reading Eric Wolf as a public intellectual today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781800739246
Publisher:	Berghahn Books
Publication date:	08/11/2023
Series:	Dislocations , #28
Pages:	228
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.48(d)

About the Author

Leigh Binford is Professor Emeritus of the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York. He writes on rural social economies, international migration and struggle in Mexico and El Salvador. His recent publications include (with Scott Cook) Obliging Need: Rural Petty Industry in Mexican Capitalism (2013, University of Texas Press).

Lesley Gill teaches anthropology at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of A Century of Violence in a Red City (2016, Duke UniversityPress) and The School of the Americas (2004, Duke UniversityPress).

Steve Striffler is the Director of the Labor Resource Center and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.  He writes on labor and the left in Latin America and the United States.   His latest book is Solidarity: Latin America and the US Left in the Era of Human Rights (2019, Pluto Press).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Fifty Years of Peasant Wars in Latin America
Lesley Gill, Leigh Binford and Steve Striffler

Chapter 1. The Right Hand of the Party: The Role of Peasants in Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution
Aaron Kappeler

Chapter 2. Rebellion, Revolution, and Reversal in Ecuador’s Countryside
Steve Striffler

Chapter 3. At the Crossroads of Power
Lesley Gill

Chapter 4. The Catholic Church, Peasants, and Revolution in Northern Morazán, El Salvador
Leigh Binford

Chapter 5. Peasants, Crime, and War in Rural Mexico
Casey Walsh

Chapter 6. Peasant Wars in Brazil
Cliff Welch

Chapter 7. Forgetting Peasants: History, “Indigeneity,” and the Anthropology of Revolution in Bolivia
Forrest Hylton

Afterword: Reflection: Reading Eric Wolf as a Public Intellectual Today
Gavin Smith

Index

Editorial Reviews

“Highly recommended.” • Choice

“This stimulating book will be of interest to a wide range of readers, including those who want an accessible, well-written guide to peasant struggles and agrarian change in Latin America…. In a world of escalating inequality, precarity, and violence, such an approach to intellectual labour is more urgent than ever.” • Journal of Agrarian Change

“The book is quite unique… The concept is original and intriguing, and brings together an outstanding array of scholars to pursue the questions Eric Wolf raised in different Latin American cases.” • Avi Chomsky, Salem State University.

From the Publisher