The Rustication of Urban Youth in China

Book excerpt: In the 1960s and 70s, the government of China conducted a rather unusual social experiment called ‘Up to the mountains and down to the village’ which sent urban youths to the countryside in an attempt to reverse the flow of the rural population migrating to towns and cities as was generally occurring in other parts of the world at that time. Originally published in 1975, Seybolt draws together a compilation of documents discussing the project which sent roughly 12 million urban youths to settle in the countryside in the years 1968-1975 alone. The documents discuss issues such as university, love and marriage as well as the details of the experiment. This title will be of interest to students of sociology, anthropology and Asian studies.