Agrarian Questions
Essays in Appreciation of T.J.Byres

This collection celebrates T J Byres' seminal contributions to the political economy of the agrarian question.

This collection celebrates T J Byres' seminal contributions to the political economy of the agrarian question. Four essays in the volume build directly on his work and four complementary essays address peasant politics and communist strategy in North China in the 1920s; globalisation and restructuring in the Indian food industry; foreign trade as a mechanism of economic retrogression in 'agriculture-constrained' economies; and the reasons for China's success and Russia's failure at the end of the twentieth 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 questions exemplified by the intellectual project of T J Byres and its achievements.

Questioning the agrarians - the work of T.J. Byres, Henry Bernstein and Tom Brass
agrarian questions then and now
Henry Bernstein
dynamic economics and the critique of urban bias
Massoud Karshenas
output per acre and size of holding - the logic of peasant agriculture under semi-feudalism, Graham Dyer
communist revolution and peasant mobilization in the hinterland of North China - the early years, R.G. Tiedemann
popular culture, populist fiction(s) - the agrarian utiopiates of A.V. Chayanov, Ignatius Donnelly and Frank Capra, Tom Brass
globalization and restructuring in the Indian food industry, Jairus Banaji
trade as a mechanism of economic retrogression, Prabhat Patnaik
China's rise, Russia's fall, Peter Nolan.