The Egalitarian Moment Asia and Africa, 1950}}}1980 [Hardcover]

An account of the unsuccessful attempts in Asia and Africa to create egalitarian rural societies.Outlining a major feature of current world history that affected more people than the rise and fall of Soviet Communism, this is the first study to discuss the many attempts in Asia and Africa to create egalitarian rural societies in the recent twentieth century.Outlining a major feature of current world history that affected more people than the rise and fall of Soviet Communism, this is the first study to discuss the many attempts in Asia and Africa to create egalitarian rural societies in the recent twentieth century.This book outlines a major feature of twentieth-century world history that arguably affected more people than the rise and fall of Soviet Communism. It is the first to discuss as related developments the many attempts in Asia and Africa in the third quarter of the twentieth century to create egalitarian rural societies (landlord abolition in Egypt, India and Iran; ujamaa in Tanzania; land reform in Indonesia; collectivization in China, Vietnam and Ethiopia), their failure, and the differentiated rural regimes that despite landlord abolition remain there to this day.1. Landlord abolition and the rural order: Egypt, India; 2. Richer peasants and the state: East Africa, Papua New Guinea; 3. Rightest regimes and peasant societies: Iran, Southeast Asia; 4. Leftist regimes and their peasantries: Ethiopia, China, Vietnam; Index. ...this pithy little book bodes fair to become a classic among Third World studies. Foreign Affairs The writing is generally clear and to the point....The discussions around the Wiles lectures in Belfast in 1994 obviously were lively and this is an appropriate memento of them. Peter Lyon, International History Review