THE EVOLUTION OF CHINA’S ANTI-POVERTY STRATEGIES

An overview focuses on China’s recent changes through conversations with its citizens.

This nonfiction book takes an observational approach to demonstrating, through the stories of 20 individuals, how daily life, professional opportunities, and national development have changed in China over the past three decades. Brown, a professor at Xiamen University, traveled to rural areas of the country in the 1980s and ’90s and again in 2019. The 2019 trip serves as the basis of the work. Each chapter features a different individual and consists primarily of the author’s interview with the person, with occasional commentary added. The subjects are from a variety of China’s rural provinces and reflect a range of experiences. Still, most describe similar transitions from isolated poverty to varying degrees of prosperity, a sense of national pride, and a feeling of connection to people outside the region. Brown introduces readers to a serial entrepreneur whose early career goal was to find steady work as a maid; a brick worker who turned a traditional craft into a viable modern enterprise; a paraplegic man who leads a program connecting people with disabilities to e-commerce; and a self-taught photojournalist who focuses on the environment (“If every filmmaker was truly born to tell one story, the photographer Mr. Zhang Fang was certainly born to document China’s desertification”). The author is a skillful interviewer who generally occupies little space on the page, allowing his subjects to tell their own stories. There are a number of themes that appear in the tales—an appreciation for increased safety, marvel at a standard of living that was unthinkable to earlier generations, and approval of government development policies—but Brown generally allows readers to draw their own conclusions instead of making connections across the chapters. The writing is solid, and the choice of subjects offers an intriguing and enlightening look at contemporary China, particularly in its rural areas. The book will mostly appeal to those with a specialist interest in China and its development, but the conversational style makes it accessible to casual readers as well.

A series of illuminating profiles of people who represent the future of rural China.