An assessment of the economic performance and social consequences of China's political economy over four decades, with a focus on China's countryside and city-countryside relations. This second edition includes a new chapter, "The Social Origins and Limits of the Chinese Democratic Movement".

List of Tables, Acknowledgments and Reflections, 1. Rethinking China's Socialist Economic Development, 2. Marxism and the Peasantry: Collectivization and Strategies of Socialist Agrarian Development, 3. Cooperation and Conflict: Cooperative and Collective Formation in China's Countryside, 4. Original Accumulation, Equality, and Late Industrialization: The Cases of Socialist China and Capitalist Taiwan With Chih-ming Ka, 5. Income Inequality and the State in Rural China, 6. City versus Countryside? The Social Consequences of Development Choices in China, 7. The Reform of Landownership and the Political Economy of Contemporary China, 8. The Social Origins and Limits of the Chinese Democratic Movement, Notes, References, Index