CAPITALISM AND THE CHINESE PEASANT
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plexity of the transition from peasant to industrial society, and the scarcity of the evidence in the Chinese case from which a total picture can be composed. But this does not mean that a model can never be constructed. Comparative studies of economic and social change in South America and India could provide new angles from which to survey China's experience: and the mainland itself may one day yield a rich harvest of information. Meanwhile Potter's removal of an oversimplified and misleading model is a first and major contribution towards the construction of a new and more refined one.