Yao Yang, China's Villages, and Revolution

New on the site this time:

Four quite personal essays by the prominent Peking University economist Yao Yang, based on Yao’s experiences in his father’s home village in Jiangxi, where Yao spent the first eight years of his life.  I am writing a paper on Yao for a conference in Switzerland in late August, and read these pieces in the course of my research.  Yao addresses two basic themes:  the effects of reform and opening on village community life, and the ultimate meaning of China’s revolution (Yao’s grandfather was a revolutionary martyr who was executed after participating in the Nanchang Uprising in 1927).  The texts are well-written and worth reading on their own terms.

Yao Yang, “Three Days Back in the Village”

Yao Yang, “Before My Grandfather’s Portrait”

Yao Yang, “The Vanishing Town”
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Yao Yang, “My View of Revolutionary History”