Composed of a series of 12 articles, this work analyzes China's rural reforms. The articles cover such topics as the responsibility system, privatization, industrialization, social conflict, urban-rural relations and rural urbanization.

Introduction: Scholarly Debates and Rural Development as the Countryside Moves into the Twenty-First Century; I: Restructuring Property Rights and Decollectivization; 1: Opposition to Change in Rural China; 2: Decollectivization in China, 1977–1983; 3: Explaining Diversity in Rural China; II: Conflicts, Norms, and the Search for New Institutions; 4: Prosperity and Conflict in Post-Mao Rural China; 5: Struggling over Land in China; 6: Law, Contracts, and Economic Modernization; III: Markets, Hierarchy, and the Restructuring of Urban-Rural Relations; 7: From Village to City; 8: Dilemmas of Partial Reform; 9: Urbanizing Rural China; IV: Industrialization and Internationalization: Rural China Turns Outward; 10: Rural Industry; 11: Internationalizing China's Countryside; 12: “Developmental Communities” on China's Coast; V: Reviewing the Record; 13: Development, Freedom, and the Future of Rural China