Peasants

Peasants transformed the world in the past, and their views on fairness and sustainability will matter more than ever to shape the twenty-first century. A fascinating book, and a must-read – THOMAS PIKETTY, bestselling author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century
Peasants has earned a place in that very short shelf of books which genuinely make you see the world anew. Maryam Aslany has thought deeply, read widely, travelled globally and observed minutely to produce a book whose insights turn our preconceptions upside down. In often exquisite prose, illuminated with brilliant shafts of scholarship, she has written a text that is as profound as it is wide-ranging and, potentially, world-changing. Over and again she reminds us of the crucial but usually ignored role that peasants still play in keeping the world in balance, “holding in check an industrial world which has none of their reverence for nature. Our fragile world is only as intact as it is because of them.” Peasants is not just an extraordinary debut, it is that most precious rarity: an out-and-out masterpiece – WILLIAM DALRYMPLE, bestselling author of The Golden Road
On each page of this remarkable book, Aslany marshals evidence to counter received wisdom about the inevitable extinction of global peasantry. As we drift into a world of megacities, she shows how cultural and intellectual forces across the political spectrum conspire to render another quarter of contemporary humanity invisible, with catastrophic consequences for our future. Shifting registers, from deep history to first-hand encounters with farmers and landscapes across the world, Aslany builds an argument of astonishing scope and consistency. There is also a miraculous deftness of touch to her writing, which makes the argument of Peasants not just forceful, but riveting to read. This is a major work, bound to ruffle feathers and stir debate – DAVID WENGROW, bestselling author of The Dawn of Everything
Totally entrancing, utterly fascinating. I found myself reeling (in a good way) each time I put it down. I hope this book, and the journey Maryam Aslany takes us on, prompts us all to think more deeply about the complex, enduring relationship between those who tend the land and everyone else – ED CONWAY, bestselling author of Material World

Maryam Aslany’s work focuses on the crisis of the global countryside. Over the last fourteen years, she has carried out field research among agricultural societies in some of the most remote landscapes of Asia, Africa and Latin America. She is currently a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and a Research Associate at the African Studies Centre at the University of Oxford. She was previously a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford, and a Research Fellow at the Peace Research Institute Oslo. She is the author of Contested Capital, and Harvest, an Audible podcast series.

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