Book ID: CBB337340218

Land Wars: The Story of China's Agrarian Revolution (2019)

unapi

DeMare, Brian (Author)


Stanford University Press


Publication Date: 2019
Physical Details: 240
Language: English

Mao Zedong's land reform campaigns comprise a critical moment in modern Chinese history, and were crucial to the rise of the CCP. In Land Wars, Brian DeMare draws on new archival research to offer an updated and comprehensive history of this attempt to fundamentally transform the countryside. Across this vast terrain loyal Maoists dispersed, intending to categorize poor farmers into prescribed social classes, and instigate a revolution that would redistribute the land. To achieve socialist utopia, the Communists imposed and performed a harsh script of peasant liberation through fierce class struggle. While many accounts of the campaigns give false credence to this narrative, DeMare argues that the reality was much more complex and brutal than is commonly understood―while many villagers prospered, there were families torn apart and countless deaths. Uniquely weaving narrative and historical accounts, DeMare powerfully highlights the often devastating role of fiction in determining history. This corrective retelling ultimately sheds new light on the contemporary legacy of land reform, a legacy fraught with inequality and resentment, but also hope.

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Reviewed By

Review Yixin Chen (2019) Review of "Land Wars: The Story of China's Agrarian Revolution". Agricultural History (pp. 755-757). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB337340218/

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Authors & Contributors
Tommaso Vidal
Raschke, Aireona Bonnie
Nicholas Anthony Autiello
Bieter, John P., Jr., Jr
Lin, Zhuyun
Yi, Jongsik Christian
Concepts
Land use
Land settlement
Maoism
Environmental history
Agriculture
Medicine and politics
Time Periods
20th century
20th century, late
21st century
19th century
Modern
Medieval
Places
China
United States
Shaanxi Province
Western states (U.S.)
Idaho (U.S.)
Tanzania (Tanganyika, Zanzibar)
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