UN VILLAGGIO CINESE NELLA RIVOLUZIONE CULTURALE | 1971 | MYRDAL-KESSLE

Un villaggio cinese nella rivoluzione culturale is an eyewitness-report and sociological study of life in a single Chinese village, Liu Ling, during the Cultural Revolution. Authors Jan Myrdal and Gun Kessle return to Liu Ling (after their earlier Report from a Chinese Village) to document how sweeping political upheaval has permeated rural life. Through extensive interviews with peasants, local officials, women, educational and health personnel, they explore themes of power relations, ideology vs. practice, gender roles, social conflict, and how revolutionary rhetoric is realized (or contested) on the ground. The book is richly illustrated with Kessle’s photographs, offering both narrative and visual texture, and contributes substantially to Western understandings of Chinese rural society in the late 1960s.