This book describes the impact of the “Green Revolution” on the Punjab region of India. The Punjab region spans Pakistan and India, but this book mainly deals with India, except when discussing water issues which involve both countries.

The subject of the book as stated in the Introduction is:
“[This study] traces the conflict and violence in contemporary Punjab to the ecological and political demands of the Green Revolution as an experiment in development and agricultural transformation.”

It starts by telling the history of the Green Revolution. It then describes technical problems associated with the revolution: the need for more chemical fertilizer, pesticides, and irrigation water, the degradation of formerly fertile soil, and the need to constantly develop new hybrid seed on order to combat pests which quickly adapt to the monoculture crops. The name “High Yield Varieties” (HYV) for the Green Revolution crops correctly describes the higher output of the methods and the seeds, but fails to capture the fact that inputs are also higher, and harmful side effects are produced (e.g. destruction of fertile soil). The book also describes the social and political problems that have been induced by to this change in agricultural processes. Clearly, the book has been well researched. However, the writing is sometimes repetitive. It could have been edited better. Some sentences obviously contain typos. There is no index. This is a source of frustration throughout the book, whenever the reader needs to be reminded of the meaning of an acronym, of which there quite a few. There are many tables and figures in the book. Some are effective, but others seem vague and unnecessary. Some large data tables present what appears to be significant information, but, in order to be effective, should have been summarized somehow – perhaps via a plot of the data.

I enjoyed reading the book in spite of the drawbacks. Despite my objections to the quality of the writing and editing, I'll keep my copy on my bookshelf, since it is a good reference source for the negative impacts of the Green Revolution. ( )