Customer Reviews

Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society, and Institutional Change Since the Great Leap Famine

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Calamity and Reform in China presents a fascinating alternative (but not mutually exclusive) explanation of the process by which the revolutionary and highly productive family responsibility system was established in China during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Yang notes that explanations centering on the Cultural Revolution and the role of leaders such as Deng Xiaoping are only partial determinants of that great change. His welldocumented thesis points to the impact of the Great Leap Famine on the attitudes and actions of Chinese peasants and their subsequent persistent activities to establish and/or maintain "household contracting" in one form or the other.

Calamity and Reform. . . is an excellent example of integrated social science research. It represents an important reinterpretation of Chinese history and policy, and it adds to our appreciation of the ways in which catastrophic events may play important roles in major social changes. Hence, the book also contributes to the current controversy concerning evolutionary change and path dependency (or hysteresis). Finally, Yang's analysis testifies to the understandable and delightful propensity of individuals (in whatever station of life) to do what they find to be in their particular interests. Calamity and Reform . . . is must reading for all students of the Chinese experience and all students concerned with the efficacy of collectivist economic structures.

Author Affiliation:

Robert M. Fearn

North Carolina State University

'Drawing together thoughtful political analysis and careful reading of many Chinese sources. Dali Yang has produced a fascinating study of institutional change in rural China from the late 1950s to the 1990s ... In all, this is a fine example of the way in which the discipline of politics and area studies can be fruitfully brought together to the enrichment of both.' Jane Duckett, Political Studies

Now in Paperback

Calamity and Reform in China State, Rural Society, and Institutional Change Since the Great Leap Famine

Dali L. Yang

Reviews

"On the basis of a wealth of primary and secondary sources, the book provides a vigorous treatment of the origin and consequences of the Great Leap Forward as well as the institutions and processes involved in China's rural reforms. Yang's book is an impressive scholarly addition to our study of contemporary Chinese politics. It should be of great interest to China scholars as well as anyone interested in the reforms of postcommunist societies." -Journal of Asian Studies

"The book is the ! ! best in a series of studies of the political economy of state and rural society in contemporary China, superseding earlier studies by virtue of its conceptual clarity and quality of evidence." -American Journal of Sociology

"The best history books are capable of two feats: debunking conventional wisdom and casting light on hidden events. Yang does both in Calamity and Reform in China. On one level, the book is a milestone in understanding the worst famine in human history. . . . On another level, Yang takes pleasure in debunking the popular myth that China's ongoing experiment with capitalism sprang immaculately from the wreckage of the Communists' other great disaster, the Cultural Revolution. . . . This is a fresh, forcefully! ! presented analysis that helps me unde! rstand where China is heading." -Asian Wall Street Journal

Dali L. Yang is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.

That's precisely why this book is important and eye-opening.

Good idea for the author to "move" here to the US where cheerleading for capitalist exploitation is the career -- the law -- of choice.

Some scepticism about statistics would be nice, not least because you have to realy on "reform" era fascists for them all. Let the dead rest, all 3 -- not 30 -- million of them.