[1] The book features four cases of villages where there was excessive extraction of taxes and the like by local CCP cadres and peasant protest in response to this, in the poorer parts of predominantly rural Anhui province.

According to Joseph Kahn of the New York Times, it "stirred consciousness of how the country’s fantastic economic growth had left behind the roughly two-thirds of the Chinese people who are still tied, directly or indirectly, to the land.

[4] Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, known for his populist policies oriented towards easing the rural-urban divide, reportedly keeps a copy of the book on his bedside table, according to a top adviser.

[1] Soon after the book's publication, local Communist Party official Zhang Xide sued Chen and Wu for libel, seeking 200,000 yuan in damages.

[7][8] According to Time magazine, "prominent lawyers from Beijing jockeyed to serve on their defense team," and peasants who had fled the village returned home to corroborate Chen and Wu's accounts during the four-day trial.