This study of economic reforms in the People's Republic of China is the eighth in the ICEG series of Country Studies, which evaluate the broad effects of both macro- and microeconomic policies in developed and developing countries. D. Gale Johnson's analysis of the economic reforms attempted and implemented in China begins with a brief history of the economic system from the first years after the Communist Revolution in 1949 through the Great Famine, industrialization, and the Cultural Revolution.