DISCOS AND DEMOCRACY - Hardcover

Schell, Orville

3.5

12 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 039456829X ISBN 13: 9780394568294

Publisher: Pantheon, 1988

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An intriguing account of the reform movements and changes sweeping across China offers a close-up analysis of China's head-on collision with modern Western democracy, its implications and impact, and the basic contradictions underlying the reform movement

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About the Author:

Orville Schell was educated at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley and is the author of numerous books and articles on China, including Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-First Century. The former dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Berkeley, he is presently the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on US–China Relations at the Asia Society in New York City.

From Publishers Weekly:

What China-watcher could have foreseen, only a few years ago, that the country would move from militant communist orthodoxy to an apparent headlong race toward capitalism? Schell (To Get Rich Is Glorious) spent a year in China to discover whether this metamorphosis is real or yet another mirage on the shifting sands of Chinese politics. Certainly, signs of a new spirit are everywhere. Schell recounts that free enterprise in Shanghai has skyrocketed, with a growth rate of 500%; stock exchanges have opened in several cities. And even Mao's guarantee of lifelong employment, the so-called Iron Rice Bowl policy, is beginning to rust as poorly performing workers are laid off. The lure of the forbiddenWestern culture with its glitzy array of movies, rock music, electronic equipment, high fashionis proving irresistible as many Chinese become disco devotees and eager consumers. Even such basic Western ideals as democracy are having an impact, especially among intellectuals and artists. But although the work ethic is rooted in Chinese tradition, independent thought and democratic participation emphatically are not. With the future still uncertain, Schell provides a clear, intelligent study of a society torn between a stagnating revolution and a newborn dynamism.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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