Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village [Paperback]

William Hinton (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520210409 | ISBN-13: 978-0520210400 | Publication Date: December 22, 1997 | Edition: 1

More than thirty years after its initial publication, William Hinton's Fanshen continues to be the essential source for those fascinated with China's continual process of rural reform and social change. This edition will appeal to anyone interested in understanding China's complex social processes, and to those who wish to rediscover and re-experience this classic volume again.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An epic; one of the most important books about China which has been written since the Revolution. . . . For anyone who wants to understand anything about the Chinese revolution of our time, the reading of this book is an absolute necessity." -- Joseph Needham, Tribune (London)

"Fanshen is an extraordinary book. It will, one may hope, dispose of many myths, both those of the Left and of the Right." -- C. P. Fitzgerald, The Nation

"This is a different kind of book about the Chinese revolution. . . . It provides us with a vivid and compelling 'grass-roots' account of life in the village precisely during the period in which the new Communist power was establishing itself. Mr. Hinton has made valuable and in some ways unique contributions to our understanding of life in a northern Chinese village on the eve of the Communist takeover." -- Benjamin Schwartz, New York Times Book Review

From the Inside Flap

"Both a nuanced interpretation of China's rural revolution and a rich source for scholars who pursue questions and interpretations different from Hinton's own."--Andrew Walder, Stanford University

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 670 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (December 22, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520210409
• ISBN-13: 978-0520210400
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #640,004 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What they didn't teach you in school, July 17, 2000

By 

Gina Arias - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village (Paperback)

This book is a must read for all of those interested in getting a more in-depth view of the impetus for the revolution in China, namely the absolutely horrific living and working conditions of poor peasants which included years of famine, exploitation by the landlords and barbaric victimization at the hands of the ruling gentry. Also gives an in-depth view of the committment and work of both Communists and non-Communists toward transforming Chinese society and correcting centuries of injustices. Especially if you were raised in America during the McCarthy era you will benefit from reading this book, by balancing the propaganda you have recieved through the media, the education system and rascal politicians your whole life.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Monumental; a paragon of documentary work, April 4, 2005

By 

Phil Myers (Brooklyn) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village (Paperback)

A sweeping, nuanced, and deeply humane account of the changes in a single village during the land reform process that brought China out of feudalism in the 1940s. Hinton's saga immerses the reader in the shocking, brutal war of each against all that characterized life in rural China in the years before the revolution, and the struggles, challenges, excesses, and corrections that realized the equitable redistribution of agricultural land from the hands of a few landlords to the peasants who tilled it.

Eighteen years in the making, the book presents a revolutionary process of rich complexity, constructing a narrative with deep insight and revealing illustration that ranges beyond simple class and economic analysis into questions of organization, family, gender, sexuality, and human frailty, courage, discipline, and altruism.

Like the real work of revolution, the long narrative has its slow, grinding parts, but the book is punctuated with many moments of clarity, humor, and human recognition, and rewards the diligent reader immensely.

Contrary to the crude and invidious red-baiting review posted by Mr. Collins on this site, Hinton in fact takes great care to examine the violent excesses of the early days of the revolution in the village; indeed the latter half of the book is concerned precisely with the attempts of the community to come to terms with the initial violence and authoritarianism of the Communist Party members and cadres.

12 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars against pop historiography and hyperbole, November 4, 2003

By 

Linda Ccoleman (Mt.Juliet, Tennessee United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village (Paperback)

This book is a classic and one of the most important accounts of land reform in the 1940s and 50s. The sequel _Shenfan_ is also good, and is also considered a classic in academic circles. Note that even conseravative scholars like Needham praise these books.

I'm writing this review mainly in response to reviewer Smallchief's comment that the book is "naive" b/c it paints too positive a picture in light of the "starvation" of "tens of millions" of peasants in the 1950s. I don't want to disrespect Smallchief. Unfortunately this kind of ahistorical hyperbole has become "common knowledge" as the Mao-bashing discourse of narratives like _Wild Swans_ has achieved hegemonic status during the past few years. I say "ahistorical" not because the numbers are wrong (although they do tend to grow over the years--i recently saw the figure 100 million for the number of people that Mao "killed"!), but that they are thrown around outside of historical context, as if you could say anything meaningful about history or about a social system with mere numbers. But if we must play the numbers game, when you talk about starvation (of course it's usually disease the kills people, even in times of famine--"starvation" just has more shock value: we picture Mao selfishly hoarding all the rice from skeletal children), during the most rapid and egalitarian improvement in quality of life in world history, it's necessary to compare statistics of deaths during the Great Leap famine with those prior to the revolution. If you do that, you'll notice that at least as many people died in an average year before the revolution than during the worst year of the famine!(1960)(i'm getting this insight from Brian Turner, who's writing a paper on the subject; Utsa Patnaik says something similar(...). In this light we can see the problem with using any number--whether tens of thousands or tens of millions--to categorically denounce the accomplishment of the Chinese revolution and the social system that the CCP tried to build.

As for the later attempt to democratize that system (the Cultural Revolution), and as for the Dengists "reform" or counter-revolution, _Fanshen_ provides a basis on which to understand those events, and Hinton offers a some useful insights into them in his later works: _The Hundred Day War_, _Shenfan_, _The Great Reversal_, and _Through a Glass Darkly_ (still in press). The best general history of the PRC is _Mao's China and After_ by Maurice Meisner.