Negotiating Socialism in Rural China: Mao, Peasants, and Local Cadres in Shanxi, 1949–1953 (Cornell East Asia Series) (Cornell East Asia Series, 179) - Hardcover

Hou, Xiaojia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1939161592 ISBN 13: 9781939161598

Publisher: Cornell East Asia Series, 2016

Synopsis

This is the first monograph in English on how China’s agricultural collectivization began. In 1953, the Chinese Communist Party launched a system of agricultural collectivization to lean the countryside toward socialism. It led to the Utopian Commune Movement in 1958 and was followed by the worst famine in human history. Surprisingly, however, its beginnings are poorly understood and often regarded as Mao Zedong’s imposition from above. This book challenges the conventional wisdom and explores how the national policy emerged from complex bureaucratic interactions among central, regional, local governments, and peasants.

About this title

From the Author:

Xiaojia Hou is currently assistant professor in the Department of History, San Jose State University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cornell East Asia Series
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1939161592
• ISBN 13: 9781939161598
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288