This unusual and exceptional book deals with a variety of issues related to consumption, linking them in a comparative analysis to a multiplicity of relationships between Chile and the United States during the last century. While the focus is on Chile's fruit export industry (especially grapes) and their growing consumption of these in the United States since the 1970s, the book goes far beyond these boundaries. It examines the relationships between production, consumption, social conflicts and political struggles from a transnational perspective as well as highlighting the gender dimensions in these connections (and disconnections). While most books on relations between the United States and Latin America discuss the impact of the former on the latter, this book is also interested in the impact that Chile has had on the United States. This book seeks to go beyond the common focus of labour history on production by also examining the varied gender, social and political impact of consumption on workers.

In a short review of this kind it is only possible to highlight a few of the key points made by the author. Tinsman quite rightly points out that the foundations for Chile's fruit export boom were established long before the military regime that overthrew the Allende government in 1973, a fact often ignored by supporters of the military regime. Among these foundations were the various cooperation agreements between Chile and the United States in which California figures prominently due to its geographical similarities and the importance of fruit growing. She also stresses the centrality of women workers in the rapid growth of the fruit sector as previously highlighted by Stephanie Barrientos et al. (Women and Agribusiness: Working Miracles in the Chilean Fruit Export Sector (London, Macmillan and New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999). It is interesting to note that this very visible phenomenon has stimulated research into the past contribution of rural women to the economy and society, a subject that researchers have largely ignored in the past. The massive incorporation of women into the seasonal agribusiness wage labour market has opened several avenues for women to challenge men's authority in the family and beyond. One of the terrains which the author explores in greater detail is consumption, drawing on oral histories from her own ethnographic work as well as that of other writers. While the military government expected that the opening of the country to consumer imports from all over the world would strengthen their legitimacy, as indeed did critics of the military regime who feared that individual consumerism would erode social solidarity and political action, Tinsman convincingly argues that these expectations were partly unfounded. For example, consumption shaped new solidarities among women which led them to contest work and employment conditions in the agribusiness plants, to erode patriarchy and to question aspects of the country's neoliberal transformation.

Tinsman also discusses in a comparative manner the marketing strategies of Chilean and US agribusinesses in promoting the consumption of grapes in the US market. Chileans proved quite adept at adapting to the requirements of US consumers and complying with the various regulations of the US authorities. In a gripping chapter Tinsman compares the consumer boycott campaigns of the United Farmworkers (UFW) of the United States, led by the legendary César Chávez, against the consumption of grapes with the Chile solidarity movement in the United States against the imports of fruit from Chile and more generally against trade and aid between the two countries. She uncovers the connections but also the disconnections between these boycotts. While both movements used consumption as an arena for achieving social and political goals they surprisingly never organised joint activities nor cooperated in developing more programmatic linkages. Tinsman also reveals the difficulties of developing transnational linkages between social movements. For example, at the emblematic mass protests against the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Seattle in 1999 she observes that protesters at the alternative forum of food and agriculture focused on the negative impact of agribusiness on peasant farmers and indigenous peoples while relegating the needs of agricultural wage workers whose livelihoods depend on agribusiness. This, in my view, is an important point to make as social activists, NGOs, international organisations and researchers tend to overlook the fact that wage workers make up an increasing proportion of the rural work force and hence fail to organise, mobilise and support them as well as design economic, social and political strategies which link the struggles of peasant farmers and agricultural wage workers to improve their livelihoods. While many wage workers come from peasant farm households an increasing proportion come from urban areas, largely from shantytowns on the periphery of cities or from small towns.

While the text is very lively and engaging it is at times a bit repetitive. For example, a comment about girls who flirt, arrive home with super-long fingernails and do not help their mothers, which appears on p. 93, is repeated almost verbatim on p. 228. I was also surprised to find that the map of the Central Valley in Chile (p. xii) seems to include two additional provinces south of Ñuble, especially as in Tinsman's excellent book Partners in Conflict: The Politics of Gender, Sexuality, and Labor in the Chilean Agrarian Reform, 1950–1973 a similar map correctly indicates that the central region ends in the province of Ñuble. Unfortunately there are also some spelling mistakes, over ten appearing, for example, in the first 80 pages. But these are quibbles and I wholeheartedly recommend this book to those interested in comparative Latin American and US history, social movements, and rural and gender studies.