This book attempts to explain the failure of Ethiopia's land reform and the problem of transformation of the peasantry through a holistic approach, by pulling together numerous factors and themes. The book first defines a comprehensive land reform as a process that influences the deprived peasant masses economically and politically. It then attempts to establish the relevance of such a process to the transformation of the peasant mode of production to a surplus producing exchange economy and consequently, to socioeconomic development of less developed countries.

Ethiopia: Failure of Land Reform and Agricultural Crisis also attempts to identify specific attributes of successful democratization processes (comprehensive land reforms) on the basis of which it evaluates and explains the failure of the Ethiopian land reform. Suitable for research, this book should appeal to scholars and students of development in general and African political economy and African revolutions in particular.