This is a book on the economic analysis of peasant household agricultural production. It is about the ways people in peasant families make use of the resources at their disposal for production, for family survival, and, where possible, for improving the quality of their lives. It is also about the impact of social and economic change on peasant farming. Some preliminary words are required regarding the level of the book, its aims, its approach, and its structure.The book is designed as a textbook for students of agricultural economics or related disciplines interested in the economics of peasant agriculture, either as part of an undergraduate degree or early in a postgraduate degree. The technical economic content of the book is pitched at a relatively elementary level. This is in part to take account of the often diverse educational backgrounds of students entering postgraduate courses in subjects like rural development, and in part to make the book accessible to the non-specialist reader or to the practitioner wishing to catch up on the topics which it covers. The economic study of farm families in developing countries has undergone formidable increases in its scope and complexity in recent decades. A bewildering array of theories now exist on household decision -makmg, the working of rural factor markets, paths of technical-change, the internal relations of the farm household, and the prospectsfor peasants in a capitalist world economy. The purpose of this book is to disentangle some of these diverse theories, and to make the connections between them. The book contains certain underlying ideas which serve to locate and unify the content of its individual chapters.