This essay is an extended inquiry into the dynamics of development and resistance unleashed by the advances of extractivism, a form of capitalism characterized by a multidimensional crisis of global scope. Extractivism takes many forms, but the epicenter of extractivism in its most recent incarnation is Latin America. The region has been the main target of its negative socioecological impacts, but also the setting of the most powerful forces of resistance. The book addresses the three critical dimensions of this process, including the new geoeconomics and geopolitics of capital, the resistances on the extractive frontier, and the alternatives proposed by governments formed in the "progressive cycle" in politics and built from below by indigenous and non-indigenous communities on the frontier. It ends with a reflection on the possibility of a post-extractivist transition to another world of social solidarity and harmony with nature, in conditions of social and ecological justice.

Henry Veltmeyer is a research professor in development studies at the Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas and professor emeritus in development studies and sociology at Saint Mary's University. He is Canadian, but with long experience in Latin America. He received a degree in philosophy and education from the Universidad Católica de Guayaquil and a certificate from the Universidad de Cuenca, Ecuador, for his outstanding contributions to alternative social thought in Latin America. He is the author and editor of more than 60 books in the area of Latin American studies, the political economy of development and globalization, and social movements in Latin American. His most recent publications include “Neo-extractivismo: ¿un modelo de desarrollo post-neoliberal o imperialismo del siglo XXI? (Mexico, 2015) and Latin America in the Vortex of Social Change (London, 2019). His most recent publication as coeditor is the volume The Essential Guide to Critical Development Studies (Londres: Routledge, 2021).