From Heaven to Earth: Images and Experiences of Development in China (review)

434 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall 1995 Elisabeth Croll. From Heaven to Earth: Images and Experiences of Development in China. London and New York: Routledge, 1994. xviii, 317 pp. Hardcover $69.00. Paperback $18.95. In Elizabeth Croll's most recent contribution, she focuses attention on a number of critical elements of China's economic reforms which have been largely overlooked in the literature. The volume draws not only on Croll's own experiences as a long-term researcher working in China's rural areas, but also on existing development literature, policy documents, and village studies by other researchers. The goals ofthe book, outlined in the preface, are quite ambitious, and, at the very least, three important and provocative issues emerge. Firstly, social, cultural, political, and economic conditions are constantly evolving in postreform rural China, and the emerging patterns vary widely across space and time. Thus, for Croll, the concept of continuous local "readjustment" is crucial to any understanding of the diverse changes occurring in China's villages and rural households. Rural China must no longer be viewed as homogeneous. Related to this, while the household has indeed emerged as the dominant unit in this "readjustment" continuum, the "recent domestication" (p. x) of China's development process has also brought greater and more significant interactions among farm households, village authorities, and the world beyond than at any other time in China's history. Secondly, greater efforts must be made to understand the Chinese peasant's "representation ofexperience"—the reforms as viewed and understood from the perspective of the people ofrural China. The paucity of such studies surely limits our understanding ofhow things will go in the future. Croll seeks to partly fill this gap with her own work, which also serves to draw attention to the more general need for a greater range ofperspectives on conditions in all types ofplaces in China. Thirdly, changes in the peasant's dreams, hopes, and ideals, which are evolving in tandem with the more mundane elements ofreform, have been all but ignored within China's development literature. Croll outlines the interaction between the visions, desires, and ideals of China's farm families and the practical strategies employed by these households and villages as they navigate the postreform environment. The issues raised by Croll seem legitimate and important. In the search for broad nomothetic constructs, the documentation of the great diversity of reform© 1995 by University experiences has often been sacrificed. Ideographic studies, rich in detail, seldom of awan ressaddress theoretical issues at higher levels oforganization and agency. Ifwe are to broaden our understanding ofthe changes occurring in China, researchers must move to a higher plateau that incorporates and reflects a deeper appreciation of Reviews 435 the local effects ofplace, time, agency, and gender on the "reform process" while simultaneously maintaining links to broader issues. Croll's book is quite successful in this respect, and as such represents a most important and special contribution to the literature. The selection of the locations and issues presented in the volume is also of note. Most studies of developmental change in China have focused on urban or peri-urban places, where growth and change have been, at least from a Western developmental perspective, most spectacular. The majority ofwork on rural areas, even poor areas, concentrates either on policy changes or on the resulting changes in economy and material welfare that can be observed. Elisabeth Croll would have us seek to understand development and China's current reforms at multiple levels of experience (ideals, behaviors, and material results), multiple locations (isolated versus spatially and economically integrated), and through the eyes of a variety ofparticipants (men, women, cadre, and the emerging village elite). Perhaps the most important theoretical issue raised in the book focuses on the changes in ideology and values that have evolved concurrently with political, social, and economic change during the reforms. Documenting change in the basic social and economic lifeways of the people ofrural China is important. However , we are also challenged by Croll's book to look beyond these elements to the parallel or resultant ideological and cultural changes that are also evolving. The volume is divided into five parts, including the introduction...