Peasant Studies in the Journal Modern China, 1979–1991

From 1979 to 1991, Modern China, a landmark journal of Chinese studies, published a large number of articles in the field of peasant studies. These articles are of two types: studies of peasants in premodern China, which focus on the rural economy, politics, and ideology; and studies on the history of “peasant studies” itself, which focus on the problems, paradigms and directions of the field. Taken together, all these articles reveal the influence of three major approaches to history: the longue durée perspective of the French Annales school, the “bottom-up” approach to lived experience of the British new social history movement, and the time, space, and demography frame of reference of G. William Skinner.