China in Search of Its Future: Years of Great Reform, 1982-87

To observe at firsthand the effects of reform on China's economy, polity, and society, John Woodruff traveled extensively from his base in Beijing, visiting key rural, industrial, and cultural centers and talking with representative citizens. His reportage is vivid and anecdotal; his discussion of complex and important issues regarding contemporary China is accessible, comprehensive, and historically accurate. He presents a balanced picture of China, reporting on extraordinary accomplishments as well as the unintended and paradoxical effects of reform.

After placing the Deng Xiaoping era in its historical and political context, Woodruff focuses on specific aspects of reform as they interact in the larger economy and in people's lives. Successive chapters report on agricultural reforms, including the new land allocation system and new marketing opportunities; industrial reforms, including reorganization of the state factories and the emergence of small, privately owned factories; cultural reforms; the changing role of women; economic reforms and the counterclaims of privilege and entrepreneurship; reforms in the universities and the rising expectations of the student generation; and court reforms, including the creation of a legal infrastructure supportive of joint ventures in foreign trade.

"John Woodruff covered China for The Baltimore Sun from the fall of 1982 to the summer of 1987. Based in Beijing, he traveled widely, and his reporting was comprehensive...[He] captures a nation in the midst of enormous change, though with substantial elements of continuity...[His book] joins its honored predecessors as a work students and scholars will turn to frequently to acquire a contemporary 'feel' for a decisive moment in the nation's history." - Michel Oksenberg, from the Foreword

"John Woodruff's book is an excellent, perceptive, up-to-date, and balanced journalist's report on the extraordinary changes that have occurred in China during five years of the past decade of reform under Deng Xiaoping. Through both analysis and anecdotes, Woodruff illuminates trends in the countryside as well as in cities, and in a personal and extremely interesting fashion he discusses the views of a wide spectrum of groups in China. The book deserves a wide audience, including all who wish to understand the fascinating transformation occurring in China and throughout the Communist world." - A. Doak Barnett