Across the world, food systems and agricultural systems are changing at a phenomenal rate. Widespread restructuring has not been confined to the production and distribution of food, though; many regions and even nations are undergoing social, political, and economic transformation as well. Bringing together twelve essays by scholars from a number of disciplines, I this timely book documents the interdependence of food systems, nation states, and the world economy. Stressing the political foundations of global agro-food systems, it sheds light on such complex questions as whether today's changes in food and agrarian systems anticipate a new world order, or are merely efforts to preserve an old order in crisis.

Philip D. McMichael is Associate Professor of Rural Sociology and Director of the International Political Economy Program at Cornell University.

This is a timely collection devoted to the globalization of food and agriculture provides engaging reading for students of international development. McMichael begins and ends with a rigorous analysis of political restructuring at the state, (economic) sectoral, and global levels.