City Versus Countryside in Mao's China Negotiating the Divide [Paperback]

A powerful work of grassroots history, tracing China's rural-urban divide back to the policies of Mao Zedong, which pitted city dwellers against villagers.The gap between those living in the city and those in the countryside remains one of China's most intractable problems. As this powerful work of grassroots history argues, the origins of China's rural-urban divide can be traced back to the Mao Zedong era. While Mao pledged to remove the gap between the city worker and the peasant, his revolutionary policies misfired and ended up provoking still greater discrepancies between town and country. Through untapped archival sources, personal diaries, and interviews with people from cities and villages in northern China, the book recounts their personal experiences, showing how they retaliated against the daily restrictions imposed on their activities while traversing between the city and the countryside. Harrowing accounts of forced migration, inequity, and political exile reveal how Chinese people fought back against policies that pitted city dwellers against villagers.The gap between those living in the city and those in the countryside remains one of China's most intractable problems. As this powerful work of grassroots history argues, the origins of China's rural-urban divide can be traced back to the Mao Zedong era. While Mao pledged to remove the gap between the city worker and the peasant, his revolutionary policies misfired and ended up provoking still greater discrepancies between town and country. Through untapped archival sources, personal diaries, and interviews with people from cities and villages in northern China, the book recounts their personal experiences, showing how they retaliated against the daily restrictions imposed on their activities while traversing between the city and the countryside. Harrowing accounts of forced migration, inequity, and political exile reveal how Chinese people fought back against policies that pitted city dwellers against vlƒ;