119
CAPITALISM AND THE CHINESE PEASANT; SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGE IN A CHINESE VILLAGE*
Reviewed by H. G. H. NELSON†
Jack Potter lived in Hang Mei, one of the eight villages making up the Tang stronghold of Ping Shan, from the autumn of 1961 to the beginning of 1963. His findings were first reported in his Ph.D. Thesis for the University of California, and apart from one or two minor, though not unimportant, textual changes, the bulk of the thesis is here presented verbatim. It has been changed in only one major respect: a short section on the effects of the Western Treaty Ports on the surrounding rural hinterland has been expanded into the essay which forms the book's concluding chapter; the title has also been changed from Ping Shan: the Changing Economy of a Chinese Village,
The book's stated purposes are, first, to explore the reasons why the villagers of Ping Shan have prospered by their participation in the general commercial and industrial expansion of Hong Kong; second, to study the process of "depeasantization” and the penetration of the external market into the hitherto largely self-contained economy of the peasant; and third, to make a contribution to the understanding of the effects on China's rural economy of the Treaty Ports. A further tacit purpose of the book is the validation of some of the theories put forward by Freedman (1958) in Lineage Organization in Southeastern China—and it is one that is particularly well-served.
Potter divides his field-data into three main sections:
1) the occupational structure of Ping Shan in the early 1960s, and the process by which some of the villagers have made the transition "from peasants to farmers".
Capitalism and the Chinese Peasant; Social and Economic Change in a Chinese Village: Jack M. Potter, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968; pp. ix, 215, illustrated, US$5.75.
† Mr. Howard Nelson is a graduate student of the University of London at present engaged on social research in the New Territories.
Ping Shan is in the north-west New Territories of Hong Kong. For Ping Shan with Ha Tsuen see pp. 162-165 of A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories (Hong Kong, Government Printer, n.d. but 1960). Ed.
119
CAPITALISM AND THE CHINESE PEASANT; SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGE IN A CHINESE VILLAGE*
Reviewed by H. G. H. NELSON†
Jack Potter lived in Hang Mei, one of the eight villages making up the Tang stronghold of Ping Shan, from the autumn of 1961 to the beginning of 1963. His findings were first reported in his Ph.D. Thesis for the University of California, and apart from one or two minor, though not unimportant, textual changes, the bulk of the thesis is here presented verbatim. It has been changed in only one major respect: a short section on the effects of the Western Treaty Ports on the surrounding rural hinterland has been expanded into the essay which forms the book's concluding chap- ter; the title has also been changed from Ping Shan: the Changing Economy of a Chinese Village,
The book's stated purposes are, first, to explore the reasons why the villagers of Ping Shan have prospered by their participa- tion in the general commercial and industrial expansion of Hong Kong; second, to study the process of "depeasantization” and the penetration of the external market into the hitherto largely self- contained economy of the peasant; and third, to make a contribu- tion to the understanding of the effects on China's rural economy of the Treaty Ports. A further tacit purpose of the book is the validation of some of the theories put forward by Freedman (1958) in Lineage Organization in Southeastern China—and it is one that is particularly well-served.
Potter divides his field-data into three main sections:
1) the occupational structure of Ping Shan in the early 1960s, and the process by which some of the villagers have made the transition "from peasants to farmers".
Capitalism and the Chinese Peasant; Social and Economic Change in a Chinese Village: Jack M. Potter, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968; pp. ix, 215, illustrated, US$5.75.
† Mr. Howard Nelson is a graduate student of the University of London at present engaged on social research in the New Territories.
Ping Shan is in the north-west New Territories of Hong Kong. For Ping Shan with Ha Tsuen see pp. 162-165 of A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories (Hong Kong, Govern- ment Printer, n.d. but 1960). Ed.
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