Back from the brink -- Memory and myth -- Socialist education -- A whiff -- Riding high -- The stench -- Whatever chairman Mao says -- War communism -- Sprouts of reform -- Stalemate -- Tremors -- Earthquakes -- Reform -- Reform and its discontents
Summary
Drawing on nearly thirty years of field and documentary research in rural North China, this book explores the contested relationship between village and state since the 1960s. The work extends the authors' prize-winning Chinese Village, Socialist State to the present, highlighting the important role of the countryside in the Cultural Revolution and assessing both dynamic changes that have transformed village China in the era of reform and cultural continuities. The authors bring the countryside to life through personal and poignant accounts of villagers across three generations of social upheaval. Highlighting the agency of local actors enmeshed in revolution, they underline the centrality of rural and rural-urban conflicts to Chinese politics and society
