Beyond the Miracle of the Market

'This book could not have been written at a better time. While the book focuses on Kenya, it is equally applicable to all of Africa, Latin America, and perhaps to the newly evolving capitalist countries of Eastern Europe. Must reading for advanced students, researchers, and policymakers concerned with Africa, development economics, or institution building.' Choice

'Theoretically rigorous, at times even elegant, this volume further confirms Robert Bates as one of the keenest observers of the complex relationship between politics and economics in the developing world ... Throughout, Bates masterfully expands on his theoretical arguments, demonstrating that it is necessary to anchor an analysis of class formation within an analysis of social structure and that one has to include an analysis of the broader polity within any study of agrarian politics.' American Political Science Review

'... this is an unusually challenging and insightful volume. It is a major contribution to studies of Kenya while its theoretical and methodological rigor make it of interest well beyond the Kenyan context.' International Journal of African Historical Studies

'... will challenge the thinking of academics and practitioners alike ... The conclusions are valuable, but the story told in getting there is still more valuable in this empirically rich and theoretically challenging study.' American Anthropologist

'... a new edition of a very successful volume first published in 1989. ... I was struck by how well the ... book has aged. It is a complex story, but well told ... [it] shows a truly sophisticated and deep understanding of the new institutionalist analysis.' Public Choice

Robert H. Bates undertook graduate studies of anthropology at Manchester University and economics at Stanford. Joining the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences at the California Institute of Technology, he rose to full professor before leaving for the Luce Professorship at Duke in the early 1980s. He joined the faculty at Harvard in 1993. Bates has conducted field work in Zambia, Kenya, Ghana and the Sudan and traveled throughout much of West Africa as well. He has also conducted fieldwork in Colombia and Brazil, where he conducted research on the politics and economics of the international coffee industry. A consultant for the World Bank and USAID, Bates is also a member of the State Failure Task Force. He serves as a resource person for the Africa Economic Research Consortium and has for several years held a visiting professorship on the faculty of the economics department at Toulouse University.

1. The demand for revolution: the agrarian origins of Mau Mau; Appendix 1A. Kinship and stratification; 2. Material interest and political preference: the agrarian origins of political conflict; 3. Institutional structure, agricultural development, and political conflict; 4. From drought to famine: the dynamics of subsistence crises; Appendix 4A. The buying center program; 5. The politics of food crises; Appendix 5A. Famine: Meru, August 1984.