This book explores rural political change in China from 1850 to 1949 to help us understand China's transformation from a weak, decaying agrarian empire to a unified, strong nation-state during this period.

Based on local gazetteers, contemporary field studies, government archives, personal memoirs and other primary sources, it systematically compares two key macro-regions of rural China - the North China plain and the Yangzi delta - to demonstrate the ways in which the forces of political change, shaped by different local conditions, operated to transform the country. It shows that...