Book review: the global land grab: beyond the hype, edited by Mayke Kaag and Annelies Zoomers

The last two years have seen a huge amount of academic, policy-making and media interest in the increasingly contentious issue of land grabbing – the large-scale acquisition of land in the global South. It is a phenomenon against which locals seem defenseless, and one about which multilateral organizations such as the World Bank as well as civil-society organizations and action NGOs have become increasingly vocal. This empirically diverse volume – taking in case studies from across Africa, Asia and Latin America – seeks to step back from the hype to explore if the Global Land Grab actually exists, and what, beyond the immediately visible dynamics and practices, are the real problems? Laura Bernal-Bermúdez concludes that this is an important contribution to the literature.