Efforts by the Chinese Communist Party and its leaders to institute reform of its Maoist economy and rise to the level of a market economy began substantially in the early 1980s. These efforts went through various phases of crises, both political and economic, and through many leaders in Beijing. In his book, Andrew H. Wedeman argues that China's road to a successful market economy was hampered by the central government's failure to prevent local governments from forcing prices to market level. In order to understand what this means, readers must revisit the long history in China, a vast and populous nation in which local governments traditionally had a dominant voice in running their own economy, within the boundaries of their villages or regions. At the same time, the author agrees with other scholars who have extensively researched the Communist-run economy that China has made the transition to a market economy without experiencing the pitfalls that engulfed many former Soviet republics in the early 1990s, when the Soviet bloc collapsed. Economic reform in China stalled in the years following the massacre of students at Tiananmen Square in 1989. The period before and after 1989 was marked by paralysis in the government as corruption, chaos and anxiety took over the country. A rapid revival of reform began in 1992-93, pushed by Deng Xiaoping who believed that disaster would strike the government unless reform was carried out boldly to transform a backwater economy into a world-class market economy.

Wedeman traced the various periods of economic development in China, going back to the 1970s, but concentrating mostly on the 1980s during which local reports discussed the "commodity wars" led by local governments. Local governments established "export protectionism" by setting up trade barriers to prevent undervalued commodities such as cotton, silk, tobacco, wool, tea and sugarcane to reach the inter-regional market. In most cases, local governments took control over supplies and then increased prices and speculation, causing in some cases the collapse of local markets.

Different chapters in the book explain these commodity wars and the role of local governments in dictating the regional economy. The author says that by 1989-90, internal trade in China was in disorder because export protectionism blocked movement of raw materials to reach inter-regional markets. On the other hand, import protectionism created what he calls "feudal economies" and "city-state economies." The war between regions and the central government resulted in the creation of so-called "road-blocking tigers" which forced individual traders to pay illegal taxes. The illegal and high road taxes deterred those traders from taking their products to markets. The book contains numerous illustrations about roadblock tigers - a caricature of the way the economy was organized in the 1980s. By the end of 1990, the central government decided to eradicate local protectionism. The author says local protectionism, whether export or import, appeared to diminish after 1990, giving way to "a relatively open domestic economy."

The economy continues to be reformed in the decade after 1990, going through other crises, one of which is the price war, which reached a high in the 1998-2000 period. In the 1989-1990 period, local governments imposed import barriers and banned imports. In the 1998-2000 period, the manufacturers, not the local governments, cut prices in response to market saturation. Such a development demonstrates that the price war in the 1998-2000 was driven by the market and conflicts among companies - not among local governments. Another factor is that the central government reacted to the price war by not trying to fix prices. Instead, it imposed anti-dumping legislation, a move drawing China closer to a market economy. The author also explains other steps adopted by the central government, from tax codes to measures to fight inflation and corruption, aimed at developing the economy.