Michael Woods has taken on the formidable task of giving an overview of rural places and society in advanced economies as a single author and has presented a book that rightly deserves to be called state-of-the-art. - Geographische RundschauWith Rural Geography Michael Woods remedies the often underestimated dynamism of rural places and rural society by providing the much-needed synthesis of the European and North American literature on rural restructuring and globalization processes.- Patrick H Mooney, University of KentuckyRural Geography is an introduction to contemporary rural societies and economies in the developed world. It examines the social and economic processes at work in the contemporary countryside - including the more traditional: like agriculture; land use; and population; as well as wider themes like: rural health, crime, exclusion, commodification; and alternative lifestyles. With a contextualising section defining the rural, the text is organised systematically in three principal sections: O Processes of Rural Restructuring O Responses to Rural Restructuring O Experiences of Rural Restructuring Using the most recent empirical material , statistical data and research, the text is global in perspective using comparative examples throughout. Rural Geography is a systematic introduction to the processes, responses, and experiences of rural restructuring.