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.
Table of Content
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
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).