This extensively researched and elegantly written study offers a fine-grained analysis of the origins of the Chinese communist revolution in the countryside. Building on decades of research in newly available sources and multiple trips to Jiangxi, Stephen Averill provides a definitive local perspective on the rise of a revolution that reshaped China and the world. A rich work of social history, it goes beyond conventional Mao-centered narrative to explore the social cleavages that enabled the revolution to grow and dramatically influenced the structure of conflict within the party itself. Posthumously published with an introduction by Joseph W. Esherick and Elizabeth J. Perry, this book will stand as a memorial to the remarkable scholarship of a pioneer researcher on the social history of the Chinese revolution. Students and scholars interested in modern China and in the social origins of revolution will find it essential reading.

Part 1 Preface Part 2 Introduction by Joseph W. Esherick and Elizabeth J. Perry Part 3 Introduction Part 4 Part I: Jinggangshan Before Mao Chapter 5 Introduction Chapter 6 Chapter 1: Jinggangshan Society and Economy Chapter 7 Chapter 2: Bandits and Brotherhoods Chapter 8 Chapter 3: Wang Zuo and Yuan Wencai Chapter 9 Chapter 4: The Early Jinggangshan Revolutionary Movement Part 10 Part II: The Jinggangshan Revolutionary Base Area Chapter 11 Introduction Chapter 12 Chapter 5: Establishing the Jinggangshan Base Chapter 13 Chapter 6: All That Is Needed Is to Go in Circles: Contending for the Base Chapter 14 Chapter 7: Socioeconomic Reform Chapter 15 Chapter 8: The Midyear Crisis Chapter 16 Chapter 9: Autumn and the Fall of the Base Part 17 Part III: Jinggangshan after Mao Chapter 18 Introduction Chapter 19 Chapter 10: Jinggangshan After Mao Chapter 20 Chapter 11: Crisis and Rupture Part 21 Conclusion

By Stephen C. Averill; Joseph W. Esherick and Elizabeth J. Perry