[1] By studying over 1,500 official county gazetteers as well as other unpublished investigative reports and his own interviews with villagers, Su Yang (based in UC Irvine[6]) systematically recorded and analyzed in his book the collective killings in rural area of China during the Cultural Revolution.
"[1] Joel Andreas commented that "Su has produced a serious scholarly investigation" and that "he is genuinely concerned with understanding the complex causes of the wave of rural killing that accompanied the Cultural Revolution and, using the theoretical and methodological tools of a sociologist, he has put together a sophisticated and insightful explanation.
"[3] Greg Procknow thought Su's book "stands as an important corrective to a depiction of Cultural Revolution killings as occurring mostly in urban areas", but he also argued that there were a number of shortcomings in the work.
[2] For example, Procknow argued that "Su falls short in detailing the impact of the 1966 party directive, Decision concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, in manipulating local actors to murder their neighbours without compunction.
"[2] In addition, Jeremy Brown called Su "deserves great credit for uncovering the collective killings and for his penetrating analysis of their multiple causes", but he also commented that "it is therefore unfortunate that such a significant book suffers from flaws in its presentation.