Review: Red China’s green revolution: Technological innovation, institutional change, and economic development under the commune

• Main Author: DONALDSON, John A.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2019
• Subjects: Political Science
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3044; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4301/viewcontent/Review_Red_China_Green_av.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Professor Joshua Eisenman’s book, “Red China’s Green Revolution: Technological Innovation, Institutional Change, and Economic Development Under the Commune,” is as paradoxical as the enigmatic era that it seeks to illuminate. On the one hand, the volume contains compelling evidence – much of it newly and painstakingly collected provincial and county-level data – that the later Maoist period, particularly the 1970–1979 period, was not the disaster that it is sometimes portrayed to be. It fundamentally undermines the discredited (yet often rehearsed) fable that decollectivization was initiated and promulgated solely by desperate protesting farmers. The author supports his argument via an impressive mix of methods – including historical analysis, economic modeling and case studies.