Center for Chinese Studies, Uc Berkeley

by Jean C. Oi

Book Overview

This is a study of peasant-state relations and village politics as they have evolved in response to the state's attempts to control the division of the harvest and extract the state-defined surplus. To provide the reader with a clearer sense of the evolution of peasant-state relations over almost a forty-year period and to highlight the dramatic changes that have taken place since 1978,1 have divided my analysis into two parts: Chapters 2 through...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520061055
• ISBN13: 9780520061057
• Release Date: December 1989
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 308 Pages

Customer Reviews

a fine book, intelligent theory backed by strong research

Oi's book, which adopts a clientist model of rural Chinese politics is a well supported, and strongly argued analysis backed by extensive interviews with former participants at all levels of Chinese rural politics. An added pleasure for the student of Chinese is Oi's consistent use of "pinyin" Chinese equivalents of English terms such as "production brigade" which add color to the book's already fine prose.