Reviews for The Whist Reference Book Wherein Information Is Presented Concerning the Noble Game, in All ...

The average rating for The Whist Reference Book Wherein Information Is Presented Concerning the Noble Game, in All ... based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-08-17 00:00:00 Sherri A Ebright After learning that William Hinton, cherished author of Fanshen and other books on the Chinese communist revolution, had been a staff member of the American propaganda services in China, I decided to cross-reference the narrative portrayed in Fanshen with less suspect sources. Isabel and David Crook, members of the CPGB-ML and the CPC, who despite hardships suffered during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution never disavowed the communist leadership, offer an ideologically irreproachable perspective on the state of a rural Chinese village between approximately 1943 and 1948. To my great relief and pleasure, Fanshen and Ten Mile Inn tell essentially the same story, different nuances and highlights notwithstanding. While the Crooks don't elevate the term fanshen to the idiomatic heights Hinton assigned it to, it makes an appearance here and there with the same meaning. The communist campaigns, peasant overreaches, redresses and the difficulties of organizing the different societies at different stages of the revolution are in both books reported on in the same light, although Hinton's tale is more detailed and incorporates more direct speech and conversations from the various peasants villagers. The Crooks' takes a birds-eye view, for instance naming the "Double Reduction" or "Air Raid Shelter Campaign", detailing the difficulties and successes, but never immersing the reader in them. Whether this is a benefit or not is up to the reader to decide - if I had little time I would give preference to Ten Mile Inn, as it is much shorter and more concise, and wastes little time indulging in either Hinton's sprawling descriptive prose or his 'character studies', which from a sociological point of view do not matter anyway. As a Bonus, Ten Mile Inn comes equipped with a series of black-and-white photographs taken in and around the village and takes stock of the gains and challenges of the revolution in the last chapter. Having the luxury of time, I ended up liking Fanshen better, as it contains more statistical data and graphs, made more of an effort to connect the micro-level campaigns to the dictates and policies of the central committee (and Mao's Marxism-Leninism) and generally fleshed out the trials and pitfalls of the different political bodies more. If Hinton's oeuvre is indeed in some way compromised by ambiguous loyalties, Fanshen does not show ityet. Ten Mile Inn, which I infelicitously did not spend much time appraising on its own merits, still comes out as a solid, well-structured, analytical and theoretically sound report on the tumultuous 1940's.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-03-06 00:00:00 Rob Kennedy Not a bad pick for my Serious Book of the Year for 2021. I kind of miss sociology - too bad I spent most of my undergrad with a bong glued to my face, rather than going to class. That's the way she goes, as Ray would say.