Agriculture was a major item on the agenda of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), launched in 1986. In this specially commissioned volume the national positions on agriculture taken up by the major players during the course of these negotiations are set out and analysed, country by country, by a team of internationally renowned experts. The editors have selected and ordered the studies to provide a coherent assessment and synthesis of the main issues and areas of controversy raised by the negotiations. Examination of the reasons for the holding of different national perspectives on the issue of agricultural policy and trade reform helps to explain why reaching international agreement in this area of the GATT negotiations has been so elusive.