The authors, the husband-and-wife team of Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao, who spent their early years in the countryside, described in detail the imposition of unfair taxes by local officials and the authorities’ rapacious seizure of land farmed by rural residents. The increasingly impoverished lives of peasants that the book vividly documented resulted from the very abuses of power that Hu Jintao had declared himself to be against.
该书作者陈桂棣和吴春桃夫妇早年在农村度过。他们详细描绘了地方官员强征苛捐杂税以及当局抢掠农村居民耕种的土地。该书所细致记录的农民日益贫困的生活来自于滥用权力，而胡锦涛则声言其反对滥用权力。但是，2004年2月，&lt;&lt;中国农民调查&gt;&gt;在出版一个月后被禁。