Maria Mies is a Marxist feminist scholar who is renowned for her theory of capitalist-patriarchy, which recognizes third world women and difference. She is a professor of sociology at Cologne University of Applied Sciences, but retired from teaching in 1993. Since the late 1960s she has been involved with feminist activism. In 1979, at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, she founded the Women and Development programme. Mies has written books and articles that deal with topics relating to feminism, third world issues and the environment. Her other titles published by Zed Books include The Lace Makers of Narsapur (1982), Women: The Last Colony (1988), Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale (1999) and The Subsistence Perspective (1999).Vandana Shiva, a world-renowned environmental leader and thinker, is director of the Research Foundation on Science, Technology, and Ecology. In 1993 Shiva won the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize and in 2010 was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize for her commitment to social justice.

She is the author of over twenty books. Her other titles published by Zed Books are Staying Alive (1989), The Violence of the Green Revolution (1991), Biodiversity (1992), Monocultures of the Mind (1993), Biopolitics (1995), Stolen Harvest (2001), Protect or Plunder (2001), Earth Democracy (2005) and Soil Not Oil (2009).