While ecological critics have gained something of an upper hand in this debate of late, the editors of African Enclosures have given the pendulum a huge shove in the opposite direction. For Philip Woodhouse, Henry Bernstein and David Hulme, the most critical determinant of environmental change in Africa is the creeping commoditization of land and water resources ... this unfashionable but cogent and vigorously argued, structuralist position marks African Enclosures as a valuable and timely contribution to political ecology and a range of cognate fields. It should be widely read by those who share its authors' interest in returning political ecology to its political-economic roots. -

• From commons to enclosures? Philip Woodhouse, Henry Bernstein, David Hulme; a very decentralized development - exploiting a new wetland in the Sourou Valley, Mali, Philip Woodhouse, Pippa Chenevix-Trench, Martin Tessougue; uncommon property - the scramble for wetland in Southern Kenya, Christopher Southgate, David Hulme; modernizing communal lands - evolving resource use in the Shoshong Hills, Botswana, Andrew Clayton, Philip Woodhouse; the Mutale River Valley - an apartheid oasis, Edward Lahiff; whose environments? whose livelihoods, Henry Bernstein, Philip Woodhouse, David Hulme.

While ecological critics have gained something of an upper hand in this debate of late, the editors of African Enclosures have given the pendulum a huge shove in the opposite direction. For Philip Woodhouse, Henry Bernstein and David Hulme, the most critical determinant of environmental change in Africa is the creeping commoditization of land and water resources ... this unfashionable but cogent and vigorously argued, structuralist position marks African Enclosures as a valuable and timely contribution to political ecology and a range of cognate fields. It should be widely read by those who share its authors' interest in returning political ecology to its political-economic roots. -

• From commons to enclosures? Philip Woodhouse, Henry Bernstein, David Hulme; a very decentralized development - exploiting a new wetland in the Sourou Valley, Mali, Philip Woodhouse, Pippa Chenevix-Trench, Martin Tessougue; uncommon property - the scramble for wetland in Southern Kenya, Christopher Southgate, David Hulme; modernizing communal lands - evolving resource use in the Shoshong Hills, Botswana, Andrew Clayton, Philip Woodhouse; the Mutale River Valley - an apartheid oasis, Edward Lahiff; whose environments? whose livelihoods, Henry Bernstein, Philip Woodhouse, David Hulme.