Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village, by William Hinton

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Based on extensive notes gathered in 1948, William Hinton reveals something of the essence of the great anti-imperialist, anti-feudal revolution which transformed China. For China�s hundreds of millions of landless and land-poor peasants this not only meant standing up and throwing off the landlord yoke, gain land, stock, and houses, but to end superstition, to study science, learn to read, and cease considering women as chattels. It meant doing away with village magistrates and replacing them with elected councils. Fanshen is the story of how the peasants of Long Bow Village, China built a new world.

All the changes that subsequently occurred in Long Bow were not only compressed into a relatively short space of time, they were also warped by the intense pressures of all-out Civil War. Because contradictions arose in especially acute form in Long Bow and problems tended to etch themselves in very sharp relief, Hinton was able to observe the revolutionary process more fully and to understand it more deeply, in all its intensity � both mistakes and advances. The process went deep, remaking not only the material life of the people, but also their consciousness and having a profound effect on the world at the time.