Description
This text is a book about China's rural society and how it has changed since the 1990s. It is a detailed look at the lives of peasants, Party and local government officials, and it provides a lot of data on the nature of life in rural China. The author argues that global integration is just the latest 'great leap forward' in a series of reforms that have been happening in China for over a hundred years, and that in every case it is the farmers who have been the most affected. He also predicts that peasants will rebel again in the future, based on past history.
This text had a major impact in its original Chinese version. Reviewed in the Far East Economic Review as 'one of the richest portraits of the Chinese countryside published in the reform era', the book charts a long journey through the hinterland region of the Yellow River undertaken by the author between 1994 and 1996. It examines in exhaustive detail the lives and work of peasants, Party and local government officials, providing a wealth of data on the nature of life in post-reform rural China. The author argues that global integration is but the latest 'great leap forward' in a succession of periodic reforms going back over a hundred years, that in every case it is China's farmers who bear the brunt of the changes, that in the past they have always rebelled, and, he predicts, they will do so again.
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