Customer Reviews

The Spiral Road: Change In A Chinese Village Through The Eyes Of A Communist Party Leader, Second Edition (Development, Conflict, and Social Change)

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An outstanding book that lets you see how communism worked in this village to transform the way of life. Mr. Shu-min was an American professor who had permission to spend time in this village. He made friends with the Man who was in charge, who had been born in 1946 a few short years before the communists won out. Change in village really started with the land reform of the early fifties, that tried to even out land ownership. Every thing went great for the first few years, production increased, life got better for everyone. The people became believers, then in 1958 Mao led them down the path of the insanity called the great leap forward with the establishment of the People's Communes. There was supposed to be rural industrial development by building backyard furnaces to make steel.They backed away from the farming and wasted time on the furnace. As this happened everywhere in China it led to starvation. It was made worse by local officials trying to meet assigned targets lying to higher officials about what was really happened. This led to their continuing down the wrong path. Not everything that happened in the village was such a disaster. Finally the village worked things out and started to build a better life for everyone. I found especially interesting the discussion of the way they handled birth control. Having male heirs to continue the family is of extreme importance to the Chinese. But also the curtailing of population increase means only one child per family. How all that is handled is extremely interesting. Really a fascinating story of how a well run village works.

I read the book for my sociology class and I will say that I am impressed by it. It is written very well and Huang Shu-min did a great job conveying the changes in Lin Village after the Chinese Communist Party takes over CHina. The book can be challenging to people, especially those who are forced to read it. An I feel you have to have an interst of Asia to actually get into the book. So if you do have this intrest, I recomend that you buy it.