Morality and Power in a Chinese Village

by Richard Madsen

Small amount of underling or highlighting, but barely looks used otherwise.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look at the evolution of leadership styles in a Chinese village during the Socialist Education Movement. Madsen shows how the Maoist ideology of socialist work teams contrasted starkly with more Confucian ideals of established rural leaders, ultimately leading to a revolving door of leaders destined to fall short in some aspect of competing ideas of "success".

The SEM failed, it seems, not only because its early stages were particularly brutal, but because the Maoism it preached became so evangelicaly zealous and absurd that it's realization was impossible. Similar to many religious movements, crusaders for the distinctly non-religious SEM eventually lost their zeal as they came to discern complexities and ambiguities in life that their abstract, rigidly dogmatic ideology could not explain.