Annelies Zoomers & Mayke Kaag 
Global Land Grab [PDF ebook] 
Beyond the Hype

The last two years have seen a huge amount of academic, policy-making and media interest in the increasingly contentious issue of land grabbing – the large-scale acquisition of land in the global South. It is a phenomenon against which locals seem defenceless, and one about which multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank, as well as civil-society organizations and action NGOs have become increasingly vocal.This in-depth and empirically diverse volume – taking in case studies from across Africa, Asia and Latin America – takes a step back from the hype to explore a number of key questions: Does the ‘global land grab’ actually exist? If so, what is new about it? And what, beyond the immediately visible dynamics and practices, are the real problems?A comprehensive and much-needed intervention on one of the most hotly contested but little-understood issues facing countries of the South today.