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ISBN:
978-1-58367-175-7
$28.95 paper

672 pp.

China/Politics/Agriculture

Fanshen

A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village

by William Hinton, new preface by Freg Magdoff

More than forty years after its initial publication, Fanshen remains the essential volume for those interested in China’s revolutionary process of rural reform and social change. William Hinton’s pioneering work is a marvelous and revealing look into life in the Chinese countryside, where tradition and modernity have had both a complementary and caustic relationship since the Chinese Communist Party first came to power. It is a rare, concrete record of social struggle and transformation, as witnessed by a participant. Fanshen continues to offer profound insight into the lives of peasants and China’s complex social processes. Rediscover this classic volume, which includes a new preface by Fred Magdoff.

“One of the most important books about China which has been written since the Revolution. For anyone who wants to understand anything important about the Chinese revolution of our time, the reading of this book is an absolute necessity.”
—JOSEPH NEEDHAM, London Tribune

“A vivid and compelling ‘grassroots’ account of life in the village precisely during the period in which the new Communist power was establishing itself. A unique contribution to our understanding of life in a northern Chinese village on the eve of the Communist takeover.”
—BENJAMIN SCHWARTZ, New York Times Book Review

“Fanshen is an extraordinary book. It will dispose of many myths, both of Left and of the Right.”
—C. P. FITZGERALD, The Nation

WILLIAM HINTON (1919-2004) was a farmer in Vermont and a legendary figure in the U.S. Left. He wrote many books on post-revolutionary China, including Through a Glass Darkly, Iron Oxen, The Great Reversal, Hundred Day War, Shenfan, and Turning Point in China.

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