The product of painstaking, scholarly and systematic research undertaken in the late 1970's and early 1980's, this book provides a panoramic view of the dynamics of peasant struggles, land reforms and social change in Kerala in general and its northern part Malabar in particular. The author in this well-researched, empirically rich book, begins with the general proposition that land reforms were no liberal gifts from enlightened governments but have been historical processes necessitated by protracted peasant struggles. The detailed descriptive facts, the numerous tables and the data unearthed through strenuous fieldwork would stimulate further research into the questions raised in the book. In the Preface to this second edition of the book the author raises the puzzle of Kerala's "depeasantization" since the 1980s shortly after the completion of the implementation of land reforms; and the deepening paradox of the "Kerala phenomenon". To understand these also in perspective by intelligent lay readers, interested academics, researchers, and policy makers, the book is an essential reading. Contents 1. Introduction; 2. Land and Society in Pre-British Malabar; 3. Peasant Struggles and Land Reforms, 1836-1956; 4. Peasant Struggles and Land Reforms, 1957-70; 5. Implementation of Land Reforms, 1970-81; 6. Land Reforms and Changes in Land System, 1970-79; 7. Land Reforms and Social Change, 1970-79; 8. Conclusion; References; Index.