Grace Carswell offers a rich and extensively researched analysis of land and politics in Kigezi District, south-western Uganda, from colonial times to the present era. Notably, her work makes commendable use of ethnographic field research, surveys, oral histories and official documents to illustrate the complex intersections between the implementation of colonial-era policies and pre-colonial tribal social systems governing land. She explores how colonial policies aimed at ‘modernising’ Kigezi's agriculture were mediated, moulded, and sometimes made irrelevant, by long-standing tribal practices and production patterns. Exploring the political economy of agriculture in the region, she illustrates how colonialists' dismissal of Kigezi's people as ‘parasites’ on the land often led to a failure to engage with and understand Kigezi's already highly nuanced and socially embedded agricultural system. As a result colonial authorities frequently constructed notions of policy ‘success’ and ‘failure’ without fully recognising ‘the vibrancy and productivity of the existing production system’ or the impact of reforms for the people of Kigezi.

The book is divided into two distinct sections. The first introduces the district and explains the utility of Kigezi as a case-study region. It then explores ‘colonial encounters with Kigezi agriculture’, in four chapters that consider in turn colonial attempts to introduce cash crops, to encourage soil conservation, to ‘modernise’ land tenure, and to introduce land reform such as enclosure and consolidation against the backdrop of tribal chiefs' authority. After this, a second section considers the trajectory of Kigezi agriculture in more recent times. One chapter explores post-independence agricultural trends and challenges narratives of ecological destruction to illustrate the way in which Kigezi's agriculture has, despite demographic challenges, remained sustainable. The next, most interestingly, analyses livelihoods within Kigezi agriculture, drawing upon ethnographic stories gained from field research to examine issues of social well-being amongst Kigezi's rural population. The conclusion then emphasises that policy ‘success’ is a contestable construction that can be challenged through ethnographic investigation, while making the case that the people of Kigezi have themselves been largely ‘successful’ in rising to political and environmental challenges to maintain an enduring agricultural system.

Throughout the book it is perhaps this ethnographic investigation which shines through most brightly to offer some of the most interesting findings. For instance, in the chapter exploring the ‘unsuccessful’ colonial attempt to introduce cash crops such as coffee and nicotine tobacco to Kigezi, Carswell's ethnographic engagement with elders who experienced the policy implementation draws out compelling stories that illustrate the social embeddedness of the agricultural economy in a concrete sense. Talking to elderly women about the attempts to introduce coffee in the 1950s, Carswell demonstrates that the colonialists' failure to recognise the central role of women as charged with tending crops and the land led to their decision to give coffee crops directly to men. As a result, women – denied access to coffee revenues and already burdened with taking care of viable and profitable food crops – took little interest in promoting coffee. Indeed, when coffee crops were hit by the antestia bug, female respondents explained they did little to fight the pest. Moreover, with the introduction of nicotine tobacco, colonial authorities failed to fully anticipate the extent to which domestic demand would undermine their efforts to harvest the crop for export. As one informant tells Carswell, ‘the bazungu [whites] expected us to sell it to them … [but] villagers' price was about three times that of the bazungu’.

To conclude, Carswell's analysis of land and politics is an impressive work of original research that demonstrates the importance of ethnographic engagement when considering policy implementation. Perhaps one area that could have received greater attention is consideration of the present Ugandan government's own agricultural policies as well as those of foreign donors. This could explore whether the Ugandan government and agencies such as USAID which are active in promoting Ugandan agriculture today are more attuned to local circumstances and practices than colonial authorities. Yet this does not detract from a comprehensive and enlightening study that is as interesting as it is informative.