Rice. Palm oil. Chocolate. Silk. Cocaine. From the most universally consumed products to the most exclusive – rural workforces across the world produce them all. But the communities to whom we owe our ways of life receive pittance in return, in money and recognition, and are some of the most ridiculed and exploited.In this revolutionary work, Dr Maryam Aslany gives the people whose work upholds modern civilisation, but whose own livelihoods are threatened, the attention they deserve. Travelling through the global economy from India to Columbia to Cambodia, Aslany humanises a way of life patronised by governments, corporations and urbanites. Above all, she advocates for the need to protect the communities we currently destroy. Peasants is the untold story of how corruption and greed affects the poorest first, from an expert with an exciting new vision. In a world where the loudest voices live in the city, Maryam Aslany delivers a compelling defence of the destabilised agriculturalist class, and warns of the danger in forgetting what our economic system is built on.