Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. China's Peasants
  • Cited by 264
      • Show more authors
      • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Select format
    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      02 December 2009
      29 March 1990
      ISBN:
      9780511607783
      9780521355216
      9780521357876
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511607783
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.672kg, 376 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.615kg, 376 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Area Studies, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Asian Studies, Anthropology
    You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org
    Subjects:
    Area Studies, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Asian Studies, Anthropology
    Information

    Book description

    This landmark study of Zengbu, a Cantonese community, is the first comprehensive analysis of a rural Chinese society by foreign anthropologists since the Revolution in 1949. Jack and Sulamith Potter examine the revolutionary experiences of Zengbu's peasant villagers and document the rapid changeover from Maoist to post-Maoist China. In particular, they seek to explain the persistence of the deep structure of Chinese culture through thirty years of revolutionary praxis. The authors assess the continuities and changes in rural China, moving from the traditional social organization and cultural life of the pre-revolutionary period through the series of large-scale efforts to implement planned social change which characterized Maoism - land reform, collectivization, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. They examine in detail late Maoist society in 1979–80 and go on to describe and analyse the extraordinary changes of the post-Mao years, during which Zengbu was decollectivized, and traditional customs and religious practices reappeared.

    Reviews

    "If you were going to read one book to become informed about the social, political, economic, and cultural impacts of the Chinese Revolution in rural China and trends after the decline of Mao Tse-tsung's towering influence on it, this would be an excellent choice....well-crafted, highly informative." Journal of Anthropological Research

    "The tight fabric of the book is dense with factual detail and social scientific theory, happily seasoned with biographical accounts of individual actors in the drama over the decades." B.E. Wallacker, Choice

    "As one of the first major ethnographic investigations of rural society in the People's Republic, Potter and Potter's book deserves widespread attention....an impressive ethnography. It should be of interest to all who study rural China, regardless of disciplne." Andrew B. Kipnis, Journal of Asian and African Studies

    Refine List

    Actions for selected content:

    Select all | Deselect all
    • View selected items
    • Export citations
    • Download PDF (zip)
    • Save to Kindle
    • Save to Dropbox
    • Save to Google Drive

    Save Search

    You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

    Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
    Cancel
    ×

    Contents

    Contents

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    Accessibility standard: Unknown

    Why this information is here

    This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

    Accessibility Information

    Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.