Peasant Uprisings

Based on newly declassified Soviet archives, including secret police reports, Peasant Rebels Under Stalin documents the active history of the vast peasant rebellion against collectivization between 1928-1932. Lynn Viola reveals the manifestation in Stalin's Russia of universal strategies of peasant resistance in what amounted to virtual civil war between state and peasantry.

Rodney Hilton's account of the Peasant's Revolt of 1381 remains the classic authoritative text on the 'English Rising'. Hilton views the revolt in the context of a general European pattern of class conflict. He demonstrates that the peasant movements that disturbed the Middle Ages were not mere unrelated outbreaks of violence but had their roots in common economic and political conditions and in a recurring conflict of interest between peasants and landowners.Now with a new introduction by Christopher Dyer, this survey remains the leading source for students of medieval English peasantry.

This classic work in subaltern studies explores the common elements present in rebel consciousness during the Indian colonial period. Ranajit Guha -- intellectual founder of the groundbreaking and influential Subaltern Studies Group -- describes from the peasants' viewpoint the relations of dominance and subordination in rural India from 1783 to 1900.

Challenging the idea that peasants were powerless agents who rebelled blindly against British imperialist oppression and local landlord exploitation, Guha emphasizes their awareness and will to effect political change. He suggests that the rebellions represented the birth of a theoretical consciousness and asserts that India's long subaltern tradition lent power to the landmark insurgence led by Mahatma Gandhi. Yet as long as landlord authority remains dominant in a ruling culture, Guha claims, all mass struggles will tend to model themselves after the unfinished projects documented in this book.

Students and scholars will welcome this paperbackedition of,Guha's 1983 original, which was distributed on a limited scale in the United States. It will influence new generations studying colonialism, post-colonialism, subaltern studies, historiography, anthropology, and Indian, Asian, and Latin American history.

This volume is a landmark in the publication of the 'Journal of Peasant Studies' being the first special issue to focus specifically on Latin America. It includes articles by a mixture of new and established schola'rs, all of whom have conducted fieldwork in Latin America.

In this long-awaited work, Samir Khalaf analyzes the history of civil strife and political violence in Lebanon and reveals the inherent contradictions that have plagued that country and made it so vulnerable to both inter-Arab and superpower rivalries. How did a fairly peaceful and resourceful society, with an impressive history of viable pluralism, coexistence, and republicanism, become the site of so much barbarism and incivility? Khalaf argues that historically internal grievances have been magnified or deflected to become the source of international conflict. From the beginning, he shows, foreign interventions have consistently exacerbated internal problems. Lebanon's fragmented political culture is a byproduct of two general features. First, it reflects the traditional forces and political conflicts caused by striking differences in religious beliefs and communal and sectarian loyalties that continue to split the society and reinforce its factional character. Second, and superimposed on these, are new forms of socioeconomic and cultural stress caused by Lebanon's role in the continuing international conflicts in the region. Khalaf concludes that Lebanon is now at a crossroads in its process of political and social transformation, and proposes some strategies to re-create a vibrant civil and political culture that can accommodate profound transformations in the internal, domestic sphere as well as mediate developments taking place internationally. Throughout, Khalaf demonstrates how the internal and external currents must be considered simultaneously in order to understand the complex and tragic history of the country. This deeply considered and subtle analysis of the interplay of complex historical forces helps us to imagine a viable future not only for Lebanon but also for the Middle East as a whole.

This book takes a new approach to the political history of the Italian Renaissance. It examines the Florentine state from its mountainous periphery, where Florence met its most strenuous opposition to territorial incorporation. From a tributary state, which treated its surrounding countryside as little more than a tax reservoir and a buffer against foreign invaders, Florence began to see its own self-interest as intertwined with that of its region and its rural subjects--a change brought about by widespread and successful peasant uprisings, hitherto unrecorded by historians.