It is manifest in developing countries around the world that the shock therapy administered to their economies by the neoliberal model of structural adjustment has failed, leaving much social and economic destruction in its wake. In Latin America this failure has led to a resurgence of interest in alternative models, some of them deploying various versions of socialism, as in Bolivia, Chile, and Venezuela, which has given rise to talk about the new pink tide enveloping the region. In this comparative study of four economies that have been making a transition to the market from their orthodox socialist pasts, Laura Enriquez focuses our attention on the plight of the small farmer in particular and on the importance of this sector for the overall socioeconomic success of the transition.Through this comparison, we see the similarities between Nicaragua and Russia in their rapid retreat from socialism and their adoption of reforms that have placed small agriculture, especially that focused...