In the 1950s, more than rustication was a systematic migration of a rural resettlement from across China to what is modern Qinghai province. Historian Rohlf examines a western region that remains a frontier project in the Sino-Tibetan borderlands; indeed, in the 1950s, two waves of migration also triggered an ethnic tension—both intra-Hui and intra-Han—that collectivized the system while mediating the foundation for socialist control. In sending more than 100,000 Chinese to Qinghai (Kokonor in Mongolian), the new central state solidified an enormous state-building project to lift Qinghai from backwardness to exploit the region’s natural resources while indoctrinating a generation of youth in the industrial initiative.... Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, faculty.