Mosher traveled throughout Southern China from Guangdong (Canton) and visited several provinces to witness first hand the stark, desolate countryside isolated from the rest of the world.

Guizhou is a mountainous province with a sparse population grubbing out an existence in the barren land using new world crops of maize and sweet potatoes.

What was striking to Mosher about the rural Chinese life was that the people in such villages lacked access to schooling, healthcare, radio or television, and even were untouched by basic amenities such as fertilizer, electricity, running water, or modern agricultural tools.

In addition, he claimed that their decision was influenced by his previous reporting on the forced abortions and sterilizations of Chinese peasant women who violated the One Child Policy.

[3] Stanford professor Clifford R. Barnett responded to this statement in a letter to the editor where he claimed that Mosher had been expelled prior to the publication of Broken Earth and that "the investigation of his behavior while doing his student fieldwork was initiated more than one and a half years before, on Oct. 1, 1981".

[9] In contrast, the Los Angeles Times gave a mixed review and wrote "The value of reading a book like this is the sense it gives of the huge obstacles in the way of really bettering the lot of China's billion people.