Will the Boat Sink the Water? The Life of China’s Peasants

This book focuses exclusively on the travails of the rural poor. Chen and Wu are a pair of veteran Chinese investigative reporters and present a grim view of contemporary rural reality. This book was officially banned in China shortly after its publication in 2003, but subsequently sold almost ten million copies in an underground Chinese language edition. It has recently been translated into English, and the book presents a series of investigative reports documenting how ruthless village officials and their local entrepreneurial allies use their power and resources to coerce, intimidate and ride roughshod over the peasantry.