William Howard Hinton (Chinese: 韩丁; pinyin: Hán Dīng; February 2, 1919 – May 15, 2004) was an American intellectual, known for his work on communism in China.

His great-aunt was novelist Ethel Lilian Voynich (1864–1960), whose 1897 book The Gadfly sold over a million copies and became the number one American bestseller in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

[citation needed] Given the attention lavished on the Kuomintang (KMT) by both U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the media, especially Henry Luce's Time Magazine, the U.S. public was slow to take notice of the Communists' rise in importance in China.

Hinton was a staff member of the U.S. Office of War Information and was present at the Chongqing negotiations between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party, where he met Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong.

[citation needed] Hinton then worked for the United Nations as a tractor-technician, providing training in modern agricultural methods in rural China.

He assisted in the development of mechanized agriculture and education, and mainly stayed in the CCP-governed northern Chinese village of Changzhi, forging close bonds with the inhabitants.

Hinton aided the locals with complicated CCP initiatives, especially literacy projects, the breaking up of the feudal estates, ensuring the equality of women, and the replacement of the imperial-era magistrates that governed the village with councils in a symbiotic relationship with the landed gentry class.

[citation needed] On his return to the United States after the conclusion of the Korean War in 1953, Hinton wanted to chronicle his observations of the revolutionary process in Long Bow.

[citation needed] After the government returned his notes and papers, Hinton set to writing Fanshen, a documentary account of the land reform in Long Bow village in which he had been both observer and participant.

In the book, Hinton examines the revolutionary experience of the Long Bow village, painting a complex picture of conflict, contradiction and cooperation in rural China.

Hinton cooled toward official policy as market reforms under Deng Xiaoping moved away from the type of socialism originally associated with Mao Zedong.