The fall of the Soviet Union was a transformative event for the national
political economies of Eastern Europe, leading not only to new regimes
of ownership and development but to dramatic changes in the natural
world itself. This painstakingly researched volume focuses on the
emblematic case of postsocialist Romania, in which the transition from
collectivization to privatization profoundly reshaped the nation's
forests, farmlands, and rivers. From bureaucrats abetting illegal
deforestation to peasants opposing government agricultural policies, it
reveals the social and political mechanisms by which neoliberalism was
introduced into the Romanian landscape.