This book marks many years of collaboration and engagement with family farming and agrarian questions in Africa, the Middle East and in particular Egypt and Tunisia. We have benefitted greatly from conversations and discussions with colleagues and farmers in both countries. We are particularly grateful to François Ireton who has supported this work throughout and helped with data collection and organising statistical material to help analyse economic and social underdevelopment in Egypt and Tunisia. Nada Trigui and Sara Pozzi helped with translation from French into English. We have benefitted from membership of Thimar, a research collective on agriculture, environment and labour in the Arab World, based in Beirut and coordinated by Martha Mundy and Karim Eid-Sabbagh.

Thanks for comments on parts of the manuscript to Ali Kadri whose critical eye served us well. We are very thankful to Max Ajl who greatly enriched this work through many conversations and made invaluable comments on an early draft. His insight and perspectives have helped sharpen many of our arguments. Thanks also to Giuliano Martiniello who commented on an early draft and whose work on peasants and agrarian questions is so important.

Mark Duffield remains an inspiration.

Drafting this work would have been much more difficult without all the support and we feel honoured to have received it. Usual caveats that we may not have always done what we may have been encouraged to do. We also gratefully acknowledge support from the Open Society Foundation Middle East and the North Africa Programme office in Amman and Tunis.

It is with sadness we completed this book, as our dear comrade Hassanine Kishk passed away. The book is dedicated to his memory –an outstanding comrade.