Peasant in Postsocialist China
Subtitle: History, Politics, and Capitalism
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2013
Language: eng
Number of pages: 242
ISBN-13: 9781107039674
Subjects: Peasants, china; Rural population; China, economic policy; China, politics and government; China, social conditions
Description: The role of the peasant in society has been fundamental throughout China's history, posing difficult, much-debated questions for Chinese modernity. Today, as China becomes an economic superpower, the issue continues to loom large. Can the peasantry be integrated into a new Chinese capitalism, or will it form an excluded and marginalized class? Alexander F. Day's highly original appraisal explores the role of the peasantry throughout Chinese history and its importance within the development of post-socialist-era politics. Examining the various ways in which the peasant is historicized, Day shows how different perceptions of the rural lie at the heart of the divergence of contemporary political stances and of new forms of social and political activism in China. Indispensable reading for all those wishing to understand Chinese history and politics, The Peasant in Post-Socialist China is a new point of departure in the debate as to the nature of tomorrow's China --