Learning from Shenzhen: China’s Post-Mao Experiment from Special Zone to Model City - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 022640109X ISBN 13: 9780226401096

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2017

Synopsis

This multidisciplinary volume, the first of its kind, presents an account of China’s contemporary transformation via one of its most important yet overlooked cities: Shenzhen, located just north of Hong Kong. In recent decades, Shenzhen has transformed from an experimental site for economic reform into a dominant city at the crossroads of the global economy. The first of China’s special economic zones, Shenzhen is today a UNESCO City of Design and the hub of China’s emerging technology industries.

Bringing China studies into dialogue with urban studies, the contributors explore how the post-Mao Chinese appropriation of capitalist logic led to a dramatic remodeling of the Chinese city and collective life in China today. These essays show how urban villages and informal institutions enabled social transformation through cases of public health, labor, architecture, gender, politics, education, and more. Offering scholars and general readers alike an unprecedented look at one of the world’s most dynamic metropolises, this collective history uses the urban case study to explore critical problems and possibilities relevant for modern-day China and beyond.

About this title

About the Author

Winnie Wong is professor of rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Van Gogh on Demand: China and the Readymade and the coeditor of Learning from Shenzhen, both also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 022640109X
• ISBN 13: 9780226401096
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 360
• Editor: O'Donnell Mary Ann, Wong Winnie, Bach Jonathan