Wretched rebels : rural disturbances on the eve of the Chinese Revolution
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Wretched rebels : rural disturbances on the eve of the Chinese Revolution
（Harvard East Asian monographs, 323）
Harvard University Asia Center , Distributed by Harvard University Press, 2009
- : cloth
- Other Title
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Jacqueries et révolution dans la Chine du XXe siècle
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [241]-261) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This book, a condensed translation of the prize- winning Jacqueries et revolution dans la Chine du XXe siecle, focuses on "spontaneous" rural unrest, uninfluenced by revolutionary intellectuals. Yet it raises issues inspired by the perennial concerns of revolutionary leaders, such as peasant "class consciousness" and China's modernization.
The author shows that the predominant forms of protest were directed not against the landowning class but against agents of the state. Foremost among them, resistance to taxation had little to do with class struggle. By contrast, protest by poor agricultural laborers and heavily indebted households was extremely rare. Other forms of social protest were reactions less to social exploitation than to oppression by local powerholders. Peasant resistance to the late Qing "new policy" reforms did indeed impede China's modernization. Decades later, peasant efforts to evade conscription, while motivated by abuses and inequities, weakened the anti-Japanese resistance.
The concluding chapter stresses persistent features of rural protest. It suggests that twentieth-century Chinese peasants were less different from seventeenth- or eighteenth-century French peasants than might be imagined and points to continuities between pre- and post-1949 rural protest.
Table of Contents
Boxes, Maps, and Tables Conventions Preface 1. Typology I: Movements Opposed to the Administration 2. Typology II: Movements Within Society 3. Repertoire of Action 4. Exploitation or Oppression? 5. Taxation 6. Reforms 7. Conscription 8. Permanencies Appendix: The Various Categories of Rural Disturbances Notes Works Cited Index
by "Nielsen BookData"