David L. Brown, International Professor of Development Sociology and co-director of the Community & Regional Development Institute at Cornell University, and Mark Shucksmith of the Newcastle University Institute for Social Renewal have co-edited a new book, with contributions from CRE’s Menelaos Gkartzios, Jeremy Phillipson and Sally Shortall, and Ruth McAreavey from Newcastle University’s School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, that addresses the challenge of studying rural societies in the 21st century from a variety of social science perspectives. The Routledge International Handbook of Rural Studies takes a problem-focused approach to examine the organization and transformation of rural society in more developed regions of the world. A panel discussion about the issues raised in the book took place at Mann Library, Cornell University, involving David Brown, chapter authors David Kay (Development Sociology and Community and Regional Development Institute, Cornell University), Kai Schafft (Penn State Department of Educational Policy), Ann Tickamyer and Leland Glenna (both of Penn State’s Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology).