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.
General
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