This monograph interprets China’s macro-economic reform concerning the countryside, agriculture and farmers (known as Sannong) from the micro perspective of rural households. It makes full use of the survey data of hundreds of villages from the fixed observation sites for decades, and the first-hand data of rural households in different representative regions, ensuring the book to be reliable in evidence, meaningful in historical study, and systematic in comparative examination, thus provides a panoramic view of rural China in the reform years. The author skillfully uses the scientific research methods to analyze from surface to inside, and from micro to macro, with the combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches, making the analysis more insightful. 

Qinghua Shi is a productive researcher and an award-winning professor in agricultural economics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Yan Gao's research interests include rural collective economy, institutional reform and regional transformation, especially in suburban areas of large cities.

Professor Shailaja Fennell has a particular focus on local and sub-national decision making in rural and urban policy design, agricultural sustainability and food security; youth, migration and employment aspirations; provision of public goods in the spheres of education and health.