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"Social structure China History."
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The corpse walker : real life stories, China from the bottom up
A compilation of twenty-seven extraordinary oral histories that opens a window, unlike any other, onto the lives of ordinary, often outcast, Chinese men and women. Liao Yiwu (one of the best-known writers in China because he is also one of the most censored) chose his subjects from the bottom of Chinese society: people for whom the \"new\" China--the China of economic growth and globalization--is no more beneficial than the old. Here are a professional mourner, a trafficker in humans, a leper, an abbot, a retired government official, a former landowner, a mortician, a feng shui master, a former Red Guard, a political prisoner, a village teacher, a blind street musician, a Falun Gong practitioner, and many others--people who have been battered by life but who have managed to retain their dignity, their humor, and their essential, complex humanity. Liao's interviews were given from 1990 to 2003.--From amazon.com.
Book
The Everlasting Empire
Established in 221 BCE, the Chinese empire lasted for 2,132 years before being replaced by the Republic of China in 1912. During its two millennia, the empire endured internal wars, foreign incursions, alien occupations, and devastating rebellions--yet fundamental institutional, sociopolitical, and cultural features of the empire remained intact.The Everlasting Empiretraces the roots of the Chinese empire's exceptional longevity and unparalleled political durability, and shows how lessons from the imperial past are relevant for China today.
Yuri Pines demonstrates that the empire survived and adjusted to a variety of domestic and external challenges through a peculiar combination of rigid ideological premises and their flexible implementation. The empire's major political actors and neighbors shared its fundamental ideological principles, such as unity under a single monarch--hence, even the empire's strongest domestic and foreign foes adopted the system of imperial rule. Yet details of this rule were constantly negotiated and adjusted. Pines shows how deep tensions between political actors including the emperor, the literati, local elites, and rebellious commoners actually enabled the empire's basic institutional framework to remain critically vital and adaptable to ever-changing sociopolitical circumstances. As contemporary China moves toward a new period of prosperity and power in the twenty-first century, Pines argues that the legacy of the empire may become an increasingly important force in shaping the nation's future trajectory.
eBook
In the wake of the Mongols : the making of a new social order in North China, 1200-1600
\"Recounts the riveting story of the Mongol conquest of north China, which inflicted terrible wartime destruction, and how the northern Chinese adapted to changed circumstances and interacted with their conquerors to create a drastically new social order. Delineates the region's changing social dynamics over four centuries of Mongol rule\"--Provided by publisher.
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Conflict and Social Order in Tibet and Inner Asia
Assessing the legacies of revolution, social upheaval and reform among minorities in communist Asia, the case studies in this volume analyse the experience of conflict and social disruption, while providing an original comparative perspective on Tibet and Inner Asia.
eBook
Negotiated power : the state, elites, and local governance in twelfth- to fourteenth-century China
\"Posits an alternative understanding of the relationship between the state and social elites in the middle period of Chinese imperial history. The book shows in vivid detail how state power and local elite interests were mutually constitutive and reinforcing\"--Provided by the publisher.
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The Modern Spirit of Asia
The Modern Spirit of Asiachallenges the notion that modernity in China and India are derivative imitations of the West, arguing that these societies have transformed their ancient traditions in unique and distinctive ways. Peter van der Veer begins with nineteenth-century imperial history, exploring how Western concepts of spirituality, secularity, religion, and magic were used to translate the traditions of India and China. He traces how modern Western notions of religion and magic were incorporated into the respective nation-building projects of Chinese and Indian nationalist intellectuals, yet how modernity in China and India is by no means uniform. While religion is a centerpiece of Indian nationalism, it is viewed in China as an obstacle to progress that must be marginalized and controlled.
The Modern Spirit of Asiamoves deftly from Kandinsky's understanding of spirituality in art to Indian yoga and Chinese qi gong, from modern theories of secularism to histories of Christian conversion, from Orientalist constructions of religion to Chinese campaigns against magic and superstition, and from Muslim Kashmir to Muslim Xinjiang. Van der Veer, an outspoken proponent of the importance of comparative studies of religion and society, eloquently makes his case in this groundbreaking examination of the spiritual and the secular in China and India.
eBook
Revolutionizing the Family
In 1950, China's new Communist government enacted a Marriage Law to allow free choice in marriage and easier access to divorce. Prohibiting arranged marriages, concubinage, and bigamy, it was one of the most dramatic efforts ever by a state to change marital and family relationships. In this comprehensive study of the effects of that law, Neil J. Diamant draws on newly opened urban and rural archival sources to offer a detailed analysis of how the law was interpreted and implemented throughout the country.
In sharp contrast to previous studies of the Marriage Law, which have argued that it had little effect in rural areas, Diamant argues that the law reshaped marriage and family relationships in significant--but often unintended--ways throughout the Maoist period. His evidence reveals a confused and often conflicted state apparatus, as well as cases of Chinese men and women taking advantage of the law to justify multiple sexual encounters, to marry for beauty, to demand expensive gifts for engagement, and to divorce on multiple occasions. Moreover, he finds, those who were best placed to use the law's more liberal provisions were not well-educated urbanites but rather illiterate peasant women who had never heard of sexual equality; and it was poor men, not women, who were those most betrayed by the peasant-based revolution.
eBook
Keeping the nation's house : domestic management and the making of modern China
Explores the vision and aspirations of elite Chinese women - home economists - who believed that the birth of modern China should begin in the home.
eBook
Social change in contemporary China and the theory of social contradictions
This book examines the various social contradictions that sit at the heart of China's strategy of maintaining a harmonious socialist society while generating vertiginous economic growth. Edited by a senior member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the book discusses the roots and backgrounds of the key theories of contradiction, alongside the practical implications on modern-day China. The content is divided into two unique parts. The first section focuses on the contradictions among the people, while the second section examines the contradictions between different social groups and social classes. Systematic and wide-ranging, the book provides a clear understanding into China's perceptions and ideas of social contradiction theory. It will be particularly relevant to scholars in social sciences/socialism studies, Marxist theory studies, and Chinese/Asian studies. [First edition published under the title \"Efficiency, Equality and Harmony: On Contradictions among the People in the New Era and Socialist Harmonious Society\", 2006.] (Series: Philosophy in Modern China) [Subject: Sociology, Asian Studies, Chinese Studies, Philosophy, Socialism]
eBook
Son Preference in Rural China: Patrilineal Families and Socioeconomic Change
This article draws on a survey conducted in six provinces in summer 2008 to investigate the determinants of son preference in rural China. The analysis confirms the conventional wisdom that son preference is embedded within patrilineal family structures and practices. We extend our analysis by exploring specific aspects of variation within patrilineal family culture. We find that the patrilineal group (clan) composition of villages and family participation in practices such as building ancestral halls and updating genealogies significantly influence son preference. Yet even though son preference is embedded within patrilineal family culture, our analysis suggests that over time the attenuation of son preference is likely. This is because determinants associated with socioeconomic change—for instance, higher levels of education, direct exposure to official policy education materials, higher income (a proxy for rural industrialization), and agricultural mechanization—all attenuate son preference. Being younger and female are also associated with weaker son preference, and both characteristics are likely to interact with education and industrialization to further dilute son preference in the longer term. Nevertheless, our findings suggest that concerted efforts are needed to ameliorate institutional discrimination against rural people in welfare provisioning and in labor markets, and to promote multiple dimensions of gender equality, including in land rights, wage rates, and education.
Journal Article