Agrarian Questions

Between 1910 and 1960, Latin America was radically transformed as rural societies became urban and peasants were pushed into precarious wage labor. The Latin American novel became the key witness to this upheaval, revealing capitalism's violent remaking of the countryside.
Agrarian Questions traces how writers from Mexico, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela portrayed different paths to capitalism, blending folk storytelling with modernist form. Beckman shows how these novels illuminate the reshaping of land and labor-insights that resonate today, as much of the world now lives in urban precarity.