The rural modern: reconstructing the self and state in Republican China - 56217

Discussions of China's early twentieth-century modernisation efforts tend to focus almost exclusively on cities, and the changes, both cultural and industrial, seen there.

As a result, the communist peasant revolution appears as a decisive historical break.

Kate Merkel-Hess corrects that misconception by demonstrating how crucial the countryside was for reformers in China long before the success of the communist revolution.