Thaxton argues that the memory of the great famine under Mao shaped villagers' resistance to the socialist state.

This book documents how China's rural people remember the great famine of Maoist rule, which proved to be the worst famine in modern world history. Ralph A. Thaxton, Jr., sheds new light on how China's socialist rulers drove rural dwellers to hunger and starvation, on how powerless villagers formed resistance to the corruption and coercion of collectivization, and on how their hidden and contentious acts, both individual and concerted, allowed them to survive and escape the predatory grip of leaders and networks in the thrall of Mao's authoritarian plan for a full-throttle realization of communism - a plan that engendered an unprecedented disaster for rural families. Based on his study of a rural village's memories of the famine, Thaxton argues that these memories persisted long after the events of the famine and shaped rural resistance to the socialist state, both before and after the post-Mao era of reform.

Introduction
1. The Republican era and the emergence of Communist leadership during the anti-Japanese war of resistance
2. The ascent of the vigilante militia: the violent antecedents of Mao's war
3. The onset of collectivization and popular dissatisfaction with Mao's 'yellow bomb' road
4. The mandate abandoned: the disaster of the great leap forward
5. Strategies of survival and their elimination in the great leap forward
6. The escape from famine and death
7. Indignation and frustrated retaliation: the politics of disengagement
8. The market comes first: the economics of disengagement
9. Persistent memories and long-delayed retaliation in the reform era
Conclusion.