Rook reviews

that it is the agricultural response to climate change. They discuss adaptive strategies adopted by farm households in southern Alberta. Nellis, Harrington, and Sheeley investigate policy, sustainability, and scale in the context of the US Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). They note the wide support for CRP among environmentalists and the need for land reservation programs to sustain healthy natural resource conditions. Of all the restructuring issues, the one best covered by the media is probably industrialized hog pro- duction. the topic of Furuseth's chapter. He points out the fundamental tensions between an industrially structured hog system and the sustainable paradigm. The last chapter by Napton looks at overcoming scale conflict and cultural biases in South Dakota. Larger farm enterprises require new ideas and technologies and different organization and behavior in an area typically resistant to change.

The greatest weakness in the book is that the whole is not as strong as many of its parts. This results from the lack of continuity among the chapters and the limited Follow through on key ideas presented in the introduction, such as the pastproductivist transition and the uneven development of agricultural restructur- ing. Neither helped frame a more in-depth probing of sustainability throughout. Readers of this journal may be disappointed in the fail- ure of some authors to discuss the policy implications of their work. Missing most was an integrating of the topics covered in the various chapters. If the group does meet again, I hope the volume that comes out of their labors includes a chapter at the end that ties together what was written in such a way that the contribution is made clear and future directions are identified. Only then will the promise of the work be realized.

David E. Kromm Geography Department

Kansas State University Manhattan, KS, USA

PII: SO306-9192(98)00013-X

Sustaining the Soil: Indigenous Soil and Water Conservation in Africa Edited by Chris Reij, Ian Scoones and Cam- illa Toulrnin Earthscan Publications Ltd, London, 1996

This is a book which challenges pre-conceptions and pre-conceived (primarily technological) sol- utions to Africa's food and agriculture prob- lems. It questions the 'doom and gloom' scen- arios of desertification and soil loss, and condemns standard technical soil and water con- servation solutions which have often proved unsustainable. The book, nevertheless, recog- nises the complexities and difficulties of more farmer-centred or community-based approaches. It encourages better understanding of farmers' soil and water related problems; flexible and adaptable use of traditional and modem tech- nology; and the recognition of the political dimension of all development interventions.

The bulk of the book is made up of 27 case studies, the majority by African authors, all con- cerning African experiences, spanning 14 coun- tries. The focus is on 'indigenous' techniques of soil and water conservation (SWC) but the editors and case study authors recognise that the distinction between 'traditional' and 'modem' is at best a grey one, and at worst, unhelpful.

The case studies are helpfully arranged by climatic region, beginning with arid and semi arid areas: Sudan, Morocco. Niger, northem Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso, and Mali; and moving through wetter climates of Zambia, Tanzania, Ghana, Cameroon, Malawi and Swa- ziland; to the Ethiopian Highlands, South Africa, central and southern Nigeria. A table in the introductory chapter summarises the salient points from each case, namely rainfall, popu- lation density, ethnic group(s), crop(s) and soil and water conservation techniques described.

Having personally made a similar attempt in the past to bring together African case stud- ies, this Reviewer has much admiration for the Editors in the impressive presentation of such a large number of clear cases. The editing is

Book reviews

good, the maps, diagrams and colour plates helpful; and the Editors' introductory chapter thought-provoking.

The introductory chapter, drawing on and synthesising the case studies, briefly raises the major factors determining the success or otherwise of SWC systems (whether 'indigen- ous' or 'modern', or a combination of both). Population density is shown to be an important and complex issue - both a pre-con- dition and motivating factor for investment and maintenance, and a potential cause of Malthusian disaster. Access to credit is not a ma.jor constraint, but rapid and visible returns to the farmer are. Markets and the infrastruc- ture to gain access to them are critical, as is security of land tenure, whether under cus- tomary rights or title. Bringing about sus- tainable SWC is seen to be a participatory process. which respects but does not deify farmer knowledge and experience; it does, however, present a major challenge to con- ventional technical professionals.

This book will add to the literature on indigenous technical knowledge and practices, and do something to dispel pessimism about Africa's agricultural future. If it informs policy makers and project planners too, then it will have served its intended and valuable purpose.

Richard Carter July 1997

The Rise & Fall of Development Theory Ed~ted by Col~n Leys Or\t Afrrtcz Educatconal Pre~c , lndlana U ~ I - L'ercrtL Pre\s and Jcrrnec Currev, Nurrobr. Rloonirngton & Indlancrpol15, L I ~ I ~ Oxford, 205 pp ( 1 996)

This is an important book. It questions the assumptions on which development theory has rested for the past fifty years. This 'stock- taking' of development theory at the end of

the twentieth century will undoubtedly raise controversy, not least among the practitioners of past conventional wisdom, especially the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The author is Professor of Political Studies at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He has been a major con- tributor to the international debate on develop- ment theory over the past thirty years, mainly from an African perspective, and was a mem- ber of the epistemic community at the Insti- tute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, England, in its formative years in the 1960s.

Two major forces are identified that have attacked the edifice on which development theory was founded. First, the ex-colonial 'third world' for which development theory was largely developed 'has fractured into increasingly diverse regions'. Second, the end of the post-world war regime of regulated international trade and capital movements has considerably reduced the scope for state econ- omic interventions. The book therefore calls for nothing less than 'a much broader-based, more historical and more explicitly political theoretical effort'.

Much of the material contained in the book is not new. A number of the seminal contri- butions that the author has made in the past, focused on Africa. have been brought together but reset within a broader framework that challenges the conventional wisdom of devel- opment theory. In the first and last essays of this nine chapter volume, the author argues that one of the main reasons for the failure of development theory as formulated fifty years ago, and the 'tragedy' of Africa. has been 'the end of the regulated system of national econ- omies formalized at Bretton Woods, which underlay the whole idea of "development" as it was conceived from the 1950s onward', and adds:

'If this is correct, a major challenge for development theory is to confront the prob- lem of how we can now resubordinate "the market" to a new system of international and