This book offers a nuanced historical reading of China's contentious land politics of the 20th century, training her eye on the rural issues of today. Arguing that land reform and agricultural economics are the central issue around which Chinese politics have pivoted in the 20th century, her critique has found a substantial audience within China. This groundbreaking volume, which collects, revises, and modifies her research of recent years, brings one of contemporary China's most original thinkers into English, and will be of great interest to scholars of development, of East Asian history, of agricultural reform and land policy, and many more.