""The two basic problems addressed in this wide-ranging study are the stagnation of food production and the dynamics of rural poverty. The facts of the agrarian crisis in Latin America show that cheap semiproletarian labor on the vast export-oriented and mechanized landed estates of today leads to destruction of the peasantry. The process is accompanied by ecological collapse, demographic explosion, urban migration, and increasing landlessness... This volumeis tightly organized; the material is logically presented with a minimum of professional jargon. It deserves a careful reading.""