Review by Choice Review
This groundbreaking work reveals the life of peasants in contemporary China. While writing this book, the authors traveled to over 50 villages and towns where they interviewed thousands of peasants during their two-year investigation. Although the book only details five cases, the authors expose "the unimaginable poverty, unimaginable evil, unimaginable suffering and desperation, unimaginable resistance and silence" of the reality of Chinese peasant life. The living conditions of the 900 million Chinese peasants have been a huge social problem that challenges Chinese legal, judiciary, political, and economic systems. Following the Chinese tradition of the "investigative literary journalism" genre, the book touches on social issues that are sensitive to the Chinese political system. Although currently banned in China, this English translation can be read by people across the world. Hopefully, the book will help the world recognize the urgency of addressing the social problems of Chinese peasants. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All collections, all levels. R. Wang Central Michigan University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
China's 900 million peasants continue to toil under a feudalistic system even as the nation enjoys economic prosperity built, in part, at their expense. The authors, husband-and-wife Chinese journalists, spent three years in Wu's home province of Anhui to uncover the poverty of peasants betrayed by Mao's revolution and bullied by petty bureaucrats, their labor exploited and their voices stifled. This expose was banned by the Chinese government, and the journalists were sued for libel by government officials. Drawing on interviews with villagers, the authors offer intimate portraits of the struggles of peasants that read with the ease and familiarity of stories but carry the urgency of news reports of lives about which little has been written. A local peasant who complains of taxing and accounting irregularities that rob the village is killed; peasants resist a corrupt deputy village chief who appropriates their land and public funds. Readers interested in the unseen and unreported lives of Chinese peasants will appreciate this revealing book. --Vanessa Bush Copyright 2006 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
What's most surprising about this expos? of the Chinese government's brutal treatment of the peasantry is not that it was banned in China, but that it got past the censors in the first place. The authors-a husband and wife team who have received major awards-recount how, in the poor province of Anhui, greedy local officials impose illegal taxes on the already impoverished peasantry and cover their tracks through double-bookkeeping. Outraged peasants risk their freedom and sometimes their lives by complaining up the command chain or making the long and costly trip to Beijing, but for the most part the central government's proclamations against excessive taxation don't effectively filter back to the local level. The authors criticize the central government for its own heavy taxation and underrepresentation of the peasantry, though in much more measured tones than they fault the local officials. "Could it be that our system itself is a toxic pool and whoever enters is poisoned by it?" they ask. As Westerners look toward China as the world's next superpower, this book is a reminder that the country's 900 million peasants often get lost in the glitter of Shanghai's Tiffany's. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
This engrossing book is a dramatic sketch of a huge problem. China's successful foray into globalization succeeded in lifting perhaps 400 million Chinese out of poverty but also created a gulf between the prosperous and the poor villages. Chen and Wu, a husband-and-wife journalist team, set out in 2001 to survey the countryside in their home province, Anhui, which is neither rich nor extremely poor. The results, first published in a suppressed but widely read Chinese book, are devastating. Zhu, herself a longtime advocate of democratic reforms, here fluently translates four of the authors' stories. One exposes a local tyrant who, with no restraints from the Party, systematically overtaxes and bullies the villages. Others feature a courageously resisting farmer and an official who still honors Mao Zedong's slogan "Serve the People." Farmers (here for some reason called peasants) were classically the "water" supporting the rulers, or "boat." This book asks whether China's farmers can survive the onslaught of their new rulers. The authors do not offer a systematic analysis and do not seem entirely aware of the history of China's rural reforms, but their book is required for specialist collections and recommended for larger public libraries (books with the same title were published in the 1930s and should not be confused with this one).-Charles W. Hayford, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
