David Seddon – författare

This book describes and explains the extraordinary wave of popular protest that swept across the so-called Third World and the countries of the former socialist bloc during the period from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, in response to the mounting debt crisis and the austerity measures widely adopted as part of economic "reform" and "adjustment". Explores this general proposition in a cross-national study of the austerity protests, or the 'IMF Riots' that have affected so many debtor nations since the mid-1970sArgues that modern austerity protests, like the classical "bread riots" in eighteenth-century Europe are political acts aimed at injustice, but acts that are an integral part of the process of international economic and political restructuringEvaluates how modern food riots are most important for what they reveal about global economic transformation and its social, and political, consequencesProvides a general framework (drawing on comparative and historical material) and then trace the cycle of uneven development, debt, neo-liberal reform, and protest in Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern EuropeFocusses on the role of women in structural adjustment and protest politics and the features of seemingly anomalous cases which qualify the general argument

First Published in 1978. This book seeks to fill the gap of works in English that systematically deal with social and economic life in 'primitive', 'tribal' and 'peasant' societies - the main object of economic anthropology, as of any branch of anthropology - from a Marxist theoretical standpoint. Using such relevant texts as Marx himself, the Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations (which appeared in English in 1964 with an introduction by Eric Hobsbawm), and that of Engels, of which The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.

Fifty years after the publication of Eric Wolf’s celebrated Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, and forty years after the publication of his path-breaking Europe and the People Without History, this book offers a much-needed critical assessment and update of Wolf’s contribution to the study of the peasantry and its relationship to capitalism, the state, and imperialism.This book provides a comprehensive evaluation of Wolf’s premises, methodology, and understanding of the peasantry, and its relationship to the rise of capitalism and the modern state. The authors analyse Wolf’s theoretical approach and, by building on his work in Europe and the People Without History especially, argue their own position concerning the dynamics of the peasantry in relation to capitalism, state, class, and imperialism. Further, the text aims to answer the agrarian question more widely, focusing on agrarian society and the political role of the peasantry in contested transitions to capitalism and to modes beyond capitalism. This requires, the authors argue, an analysis of class struggle and of the resources, material and discursive, that different classes can bring to bear on this struggle. Based on well-founded theoretical premises, the book focuses on the contested rise of capitalism in the global North, the development of core–periphery relations in the global political economy, and the place of the peasantry in these dynamics. The book presents case studies of transitions to agrarian capitalism in the British Isles, France, Germany, Japan, and the USA.The book will be of great interest to students and researchers in the areas of peasant studies, rural politics, agrarian studies, development, and political ecology.

Fifty years after the publication of Eric Wolf’s celebrated Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, and forty years after the publication of his path-breaking Europe and the People Without History, this book offers a much-needed critical assessment and update of Wolf’s contribution to the study of the peasantry and its relationship to capitalism, the state, and imperialism.This book provides a comprehensive evaluation of Wolf’s premises, methodology, and understanding of the peasantry, and its relationship to the rise of capitalism and the modern state. The authors analyse Wolf’s theoretical approach and, by building on his work in Europe and the People Without History especially, argue their own position concerning the dynamics of the peasantry in relation to capitalism, state, class, and imperialism. Further, the text aims to answer the agrarian question more widely, focusing on agrarian society and the political role of the peasantry in contested transitions to capitalism and to modes beyond capitalism. This requires, the authors argue, an analysis of class struggle and of the resources, material and discursive, that different classes can bring to bear on this struggle. Based on well-founded theoretical premises, the book focuses on the contested rise of capitalism in the global North, the development of core–periphery relations in the global political economy, and the place of the peasantry in these dynamics. The book presents case studies of transitions to agrarian capitalism in the British Isles, France, Germany, Japan, and the USA.The book will be of great interest to students and researchers in the areas of peasant studies, rural politics, agrarian studies, development, and political ecology.

First Published in 1978. This book seeks to fill the gap of works in English that systematically deal with social and economic life in 'primitive', 'tribal' and 'peasant' societies - the main object of economic anthropology, as of any branch of anthropology - from a Marxist theoretical standpoint. Using such relevant texts as Marx himself, the Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations (which appeared in English in 1964 with an introduction by Eric Hobsbawm), and that of Engels, of which The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.

Since well before Henry Morgan Stanley's fabled encounter with David Livingstone on the shore on Lake Tanganyika in the late 19th century and his subsequent collaboration with King Leopold of Belgium in looting the country of its mineral wealth, the Congo's history has been one of collaboration by a minority with, and struggle by the majority against, Western intervention.Before the colonial period, there were military struggles against annexation. During Belgian rule, charismatic religious figures emerged, promising an end to white domination; copper miners struck for higher wages; and rural workers struggled for survival. During the second half of the 20th century, the Congo's efforts at disentanglement from Belgian rule, the murder of the nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba and the long dictatorship of General Mobutu culminated in one of the bloodiest wars the world has ever seen.At the start of a new millennium, this book argues that the West has plundered Africa to its own advantage and that unrestrained global capitalism threatens to remake the entire world, bringing violence and destruction in the name of profit. In this radical history, the authors show not only how the Congo represents and symbolises the continent's long history of subordination, but also how the determined struggle of its people has continued, against the odds, to provide the Congo and the rest of Africa with real hope for the future.

This reference volume is the definitive guide to the economics and politics of the Middle East. It provides clear definitions detailing terms, concepts, names and organizations used in relation to current economic or political affairs in the Middle East. Entries define, explain and give further relevant information on countries, regions, ethnic groups, political parties, organizations, policies and disputes.