This book unveils the political economy of land squatting in a third world city, Montevideo, in Uruguay. It focuses on the effects of democratization on the mobilization of the poorest as well as on the role played by different types of brokers, from radical Catholic priests to local leaders embedded in political networks. Through a multi-method endeavour that combines ethnography, historical sources, and quantitative time series, the author reconstructs the history of the informal city since the late 1940s to the present. From a social movements/contentious politics perspective, the book challenges the assumption that socioeconomic factors such as poverty were the only causes triggering land squatting.  "Using color-coded maps and figures, Álvarez demonstrates patterns associating the timing, location, type of settlement, and brokerage. ? The book's structure, with the methodological discussion and the quantitative analysis in appendixes, makes it a good fit for both undergraduate and graduate syllabi. The historical sweep and ethnographic approach make it a good read, with interesting details, such as the reason Uruguayans have a unique and sarcastic word for shantytowns: cantegriles." (Benjamin Goldfrank, Latin American Politics and Society, Vol. 60 (03), August, 2018)