Restless China - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1442215119 ISBN 13: 9781442215115

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2013

Synopsis

This compelling book explores the explosive pace of change in China and how its citizens are grappling with a dramatically new world, both in the public and private spheres. China’s stratospheric growth has made it the second largest economy in the world—and one of the most unequal. Marxist ideology and socialist ideals have almost completely collapsed, replaced by a combination of materialism and assertive nationalism. The vast migration of labor from countryside to city has continued apace. The pressures of a hypercompetitive market economy are ripping apart the traditional family and threatening the environment. Corruption has reached new heights. The political system is even more rigid, but perhaps more brittle, than a decade ago.

There is enormous popular pride in the ascension of China to the rank of global superpower and general satisfaction in the material benefits that the poor as well as the rich have been gaining from an expanding economy. But there is also great restlessness, anger about structural injustice and political corruption, and a search for new forms of spirituality and ethics to replace a collapsing moral order. The question “What does it mean, in the new day, to be Chinese?” lurks just beneath the surface. This unique interdisciplinary book frames this central issue through an innovative set of case studies on such cutting-edge topics as reality dating shows, countercultural invented language, star bloggers, faith healers, and subversive jokes.

Contributions by: Jeremy Brown, X. L. Ding, Hsiung Ping-chen, William Jankowiak, Shuyu Kong, Perry Link, Richard P. Madsen, David Moser, Paul G. Pickowicz, Su Xiaokang, Xiao Qiang, Yunxiang Yan, and Yang Lijun.

About this title

About the Author:

Perry Link is Emeritus Professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University and Chancellorial Chair for Teaching Across Disciplines, University of California, Riverside.Richard P. Madsen is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. Paul G. Pickowicz is Distinguished Professor of History and Chinese Studies at the University of California, San Diego, and inaugural holder of the UC San Diego Endowed Chair in Modern Chinese History.

Review:

[An] excellent interdisciplinary collection with chapters on everything from courtship to consumerism. (The Wall Street Journal)

The book’s material, culled from personal interviews, Chinese-language periodicals and websites, and other sources, is remarkably rich and wide-ranging, as is the expert analysis of its thirteen contributors. (Los Angeles Review of Books)

In a rapidly evolving China, there have been real economic gains for different social classes, but injustice and political corruption remain. Through a variety of case studies, this book seeks to offer a better understanding of what it means to be Chinese today. (Survival: Global Politics and Strategy)

[A]s the editors of this timely volume put it, 'What does it mean now to be Chinese?'. . . .[A]nyone wishing to get a sense of the popular ferment that lies beneath the rapid growth and strict political controls emphasized in daily headlines will find much of value in this book. (Foreign Affairs)

The editors of Restless China have provided us with a stimulating and wide-ranging collection of essays exploring important issues and trends in contemporary China. The book would be a useful addition to reading lists for undergraduate courses on contemporary Chinese popular culture and urban social issues. Readers will certainly understand the editors’ characterization of China as restless, but it is likely that a range of other adjectives will also come to mind as they make their way through these rich and provocative analyses. (The China Journal)

Restless China sets the same high standards as Unofficial China and Popular China, the previous very well-received compilations from the editors. In a crowded marketplace, this volume stands out by focusing on the most exciting current developments in Chinese society and popular culture, and by a close examination of Chinese language sources that reveal what the Chinese themselves are thinking about and debating as they seek an appropriate value system and identity to reflect the new prosperity, all under the continuing influences of the Maoist legacy and the impact of globalization. As with the previous volumes, Restless China will be great for teaching and stimulating class discussion. (Stanley Rosen, University of Southern California)

For 25 years Perry Link, Richard Madsen, and Paul Pickowicz, three of the most insightful Western scholars studying China, have collaborated in studying the life and thought of Chinese people. This is the third volume in their series, pulling together recent work by Westerners and Chinese. The contributors have read widely in Chinese literature on the internet and engaged in long conversations with their Chinese friends. Many of them have conducted lengthy fieldwork in China. They highlight fascinating examples that reveal the issues faced by ordinary citizens: how they are treated by officials after they have been involved in accidents, jokes they tell about the Soviet Union, preparations many well-to-do businesspeople make in case they decide to emigrate, discussions about the holy and the sacred, responses to food safety. The result is a book that has the vitality of first-hand experiences and that helps foreigners to better understand the restlessness so many feel as their country gets richer and their problems become more complex. (Ezra F. Vogel, Harvard University)

About this edition

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1442215119
• ISBN 13: 9781442215115
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 298
• Editor: Link University Of California Perry, Madsen Richard P., Pickowicz Paul G.