Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century - by Eric R Wolf (Paperback)

About the Book

Originally published: New York: Harper & Row, 1969.

Book Synopsis

The picture of a downtrodden peasant fighting against a despotic ruling establishment often illustrates any discussion about peasant revolutions. Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century manages to unearth the roots and realities behind six cases of modern revolution--Mexico, Russia, China, Vietnam, Algeria and Cuba--and yet retain the romantic fervor of the peasants' struggle.

Eric Wolf writes of the long history of peasants' rebellions and revolts attempting to right the wrongs inflicted by landlords, colonists, and governments. The book was unabashed in its concern for who was most likely to engage in revolutionary activity and what kinds of alliances led to transformative social change in different historical cases. It arrived at a moment when revolution, and particularly revolution in which peasants were among the central protagonists, was more than something that had happened in the past.

A sense that revolution was possible--even likely--infused progressive intellectuals, activists, and popular struggles with both intense optimism and deep despair, as popular challenges to the established order drove states' capacities for terror. Peasant Wars conveyed a belief that knowledge can serve the cause of social justice and that working people can make history.

Review Quotes

"[Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century] provides a good short course in the major popular revolutions of our century--in Russia, Mexico, China, Algeria, Cuba, and Viet Nam--not from the perspective of governments or parties or leaders, but from the perspective of the peasant peoples whose lives and ways of living were destroyed by the depredations of the imperial powers, including American imperial power."--New York Times Book Review


"An intellectual tour de force."--Comparative Politics


"Eric Wolf's study of the six great peasant-based revolutions of the century demonstrates a mastery of his field and the methods required to negotiate it that evokes respect and admiration. In six crisp essays, and a brilliant conclusion, he extends our understanding of the nature of peasant reactions to social change appreciably by his skill in isolating and analyzing those factors, which, by a magnification of the anthropologist's techniques, can be shown to be crucial in linking local grievances and protest to larger movements of political transformation."--American Political Science Review