The Power of Words examines the struggle for literacy in the linguistically diverse, socially complex, and politically sensitive coastal province of Guangdong in southeastern China between 1949 and 1995. Addressing the Mao Zedong era as well as the profound economic changes of recent years, Peterson examines not only the spread of literacy but also how literacy was conceived at the elite level and used at the popular level.

The Power of Words asks what it meant to be 'literate' in Chinese rural society after 1949.

Using a wealth of local and national sources, Peterson focuses on the making of official literacy policy; the growing importance of 'people-run' schools and of the communist principle of voluntarism in village education; and the chronic political and cultural problem of teachers. Detailed discussions of the effects on literacy of farm collectivization, language reform, the two-track school system, the Cultural Revolution, and recent de-collectivization complete the analysis.

The Power of Words is a sophisticated contribution to the social and political history of China and to the study of literacy movements in revolutionary societies.