China in Transformation - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674117549 ISBN 13: 9780674117549

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1994

Synopsis

What will China look like in 2000? Tectonic forces are at work and its seeming stability has been largely lost after Tiananmen Square. Changing political, social, economic, intellectual, and cultural conditions are transforming China and its neighbors with a majority Chinese population. The authors in this book show what has been going on and what has been saved but is evolving. As communism did not erase the past, so new experiences build on the past and tease out newness with great resemblances. Modernity takes many forms, memory repressed for a time may reassert itself; myth, the invention of individuals and collectivities, may be more powerful than prosaic fact. Cultural factors as agents of change appear more important than ever.

This book demonstrates that today Confucian societies have salient features on a restless landscape. The authors confine themselves to enduring questions about today’s Sinic societies so that educated readers and scholars of modern China will better understand the more populous half of the world. Contributing authors include William P. Alford, David E. Apter, Myron L. Cohen, Edward Friedman, Tongqi Lin, Peny Link, Andrew J. Nathan, Benjamin I. Schwartz, Tianjian Shi, Helen F. Siu, Wang Gungwai, and Ying-shih Yu.

About this title

About the Author:

Tu Wei-ming is Director of the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Peking University, and Harvard-Yenching Professor of Chinese History and Philosophy and of Confucian Studies, Emeritus, Harvard University. He directed the Harvard-Yenching Institute from 1996 to 2008.

Review:

“China in Transformation is a fascinating and timely book which brings together twelve scholars from very different specialties-philosophy, history, literature, law, sociology, anthropology, political science, and religion-to analyze the complexities and possibilities of China’s future...There are many...important themes in this vibrant volume, and I encourage readers to see for themselves what this project contains.”―William A. Callahan, China Review International

“Provides thought-provoking insights into China as it changes―or refuses to change―and should have wide appeal.”―Marjorie Dryburgh, Asian Affairs

“These are some astute commentaries on ’whither China’ that have sufficient perspective to transcend the limits of daily journalism; for a while at least, they will be helpful guides to a very complex society in transformation.”―Albert Feuerwerker, University of Michigan

“As a short-term ideology (writes Professor Perry Link, in [this] insightful eleven chapter symposium...tightly edited by Professor Tu Wei-Ming)...to ’make money’ does hold out advantages for China. More wealth might sweeten the bitter lives of the still large peasant population, family enterprise long dormant might once more flourish, parallel freedoms might ensue and so on. Yet to make money, ’can only be a stopgap’...[and] is clearly not the end of the story.”―Malcolm Warner, Asia Pacific Business Review [UK]

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0674117549
• ISBN 13: 9780674117549
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 282
• Editor: Tu Wei-ming