Fields of Revolution represents a significant advance in the literature on agrarian reform, revolutionary Bolivia, and the political power of peasants. Scholars have long agreed that control of land has played a central role in wealth and power; however, the use of historical methods to analyze Cold War–era land reform is still nascent. Along with universal suffrage and the nationalization of the principal tin mines, the transformation of the countryside developed into one of the three pillars of Bolivia's 1952 revolution, which was led by the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR). Carmen Soliz's extensive qualitative and quantitative analysis of land tenure in three provinces at the core of Bolivia's hacienda system explains not only the mechanics and shape of land reform but also its profound effects on society and politics. Outlining the MNR's pivot from its vision of wage labor and modernization through mechanized farming, Soliz persuasively argues that wide-scale expropriations...
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Book Review|
August 01 2022
Fields of Revolution: Agrarian Reform and Rural State Formation in Bolivia, 1935–1964
Fields of Revolution: Agrarian Reform and Rural State Formation in Bolivia, 1935–1964
. By Carmen Soliz. Pitt Latin American Series
. Pittsburgh, PA
: University of Pittsburgh Press
, 2021
. Photographs. Maps. Figures. Tables. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Index
. xiv, 266
pp. Cloth, $50.00.Hispanic American Historical Review (2022) 102 (3): 577–578.
Citation
Elizabeth Shesko; Fields of Revolution: Agrarian Reform and Rural State Formation in Bolivia, 1935–1964. Hispanic American Historical Review 1 August 2022; 102 (3): 577–578. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-9798807
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