Red China's Green Revolution

Joshua Eisenman is an assistant professor of public affairs in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the co-author of China and Africa: A Century of Engagement (with David H. Shinn; University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012) and the co-editor of China and the Developing World: Beijing's Strategy for the 21st Century (with Eric Heginbotham and Derek Mitchell; M.E. Sharpe, 2015).Joshua Eisenman is assistant professor at the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and senior fellow for China studies at the American Foreign Policy Council. He is coauthor of China and Africa: A Century of Engagement (2012) and coeditor of China Steps Out: Beijing’s Major Power Engagement with the Developing World (2018).

Edward A. McCord, George Washington University:
Red China’s Green Revolution totally remakes our understanding of Chinese economic development on the eve of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms. This carefully documented study shows that rather than being a total failure on the verge of collapse, the commune system introduced under Mao actually resulted in considerable increases in agricultural productivity, which provided a positive foundation for Deng’s economic reforms. Joshua Eisenman opens the way for an important reconsideration of how political motivations, rather than economic concerns, were a main driver behind Deng’s reforms.

Marc Blecher, James Monroe Professor of Politics and East Asian Studies, Oberlin College:
Red China’s Green Revolution revolutionizes our understanding of the Maoist period and history's biggest experiment with collective agriculture. It challenges the widely held view that the commune was a failure that required privatization, and thus calls into question the very basis by which structural reforms have been legitimated and propagated to shape economic development, not just in China, but around the globe. Everyone who studies contemporary China—and, indeed, the entire neo-liberal project—must confront this book.

Barry Naughton, Sokwanlok Chair of Chinese International Affairs, University of California, San Diego:
Red China’s Green Revolution is a great book. It develops an innovative and contrarian interpretation of China’s rural communes, describing a technological revolution that occurred in China’s countryside in the 1970s. What makes this book truly outstanding is that Eisenman provides new perspectives on the importance of commune organization and incentive structures, as well as a reassessment of what Maoism meant in the lives of ordinary rural people. One after another, he drags into the sunshine topics that have been overshadowed in recent years by over-simplification and myth-making. The book concludes with a compelling new narrative of elite politics in the late 1970s that explains why the commune was ultimately abolished.

Odd Arne Westad, S. T. Lee Professor of U.S.-Asia Relations, Harvard University:
This is a truly important book. Eisenman shows how the People’s Communes created contemporary China, both through what they built and through what they destroyed. His work is of enormous significance for anyone trying to understand China’s road from revolution to reform.