[PDF] Being Modern In China eBook

Author : Paul Willis
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 181 pages
File Size : 36,91 MB
Release : 2019-11-11
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1509538321

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This book analyses modernity and tradition in China today and how they combine in striking ways in the Chinese school. Paul Willis – the leading ethnographer and author of Learning to Labour – shows how China has undergone an internal migration not only of masses of workers but also of a mental and ideological kind to new cultural landscapes of meaning, which include worship of the glorified city, devotion to consumerism, and fixation upon the smartphone and the internet. Massive educational expansion has been a precondition for explosive economic growth and technical development, but at the same time the school provides a cultural stage for personal and collective experience. In its closed walls and the inescapability of its ‘scores’, an astonishing drama plays out between the new and the old, with a tapestry of intricate human meanings woven of small tragedies and triumphs, secret promises and felt betrayals, helping to produce not only exam results but cultural orientations and occupational destinies. By exploring the cultural dimension of everyday experience as it is lived out in the school, this book sheds new light on the enormous transformations that have swept through China and created the kind of society that it is today: a society that is obsessed with the future and at the same time structured by and in continuous dialogue with its past.

Author : Paul Willis
Publisher : Polity
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 14,6 MB
Release : 2019-11-25
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781509538300

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This book analyses modernity and tradition in China today and how they combine in striking ways in the Chinese school. Paul Willis – the leading ethnographer and author of Learning to Labour – shows how China has undergone an internal migration not only of masses of workers but also of a mental and ideological kind to new cultural landscapes of meaning, which include worship of the glorified city, devotion to consumerism, and fixation upon the smartphone and the internet. Massive educational expansion has been a precondition for explosive economic growth and technical development, but at the same time the school provides a cultural stage for personal and collective experience. In its closed walls and the inescapability of its ‘scores’, an astonishing drama plays out between the new and the old, with a tapestry of intricate human meanings woven of small tragedies and triumphs, secret promises and felt betrayals, helping to produce not only exam results but cultural orientations and occupational destinies. By exploring the cultural dimension of everyday experience as it is lived out in the school, this book sheds new light on the enormous transformations that have swept through China and created the kind of society that it is today: a society that is obsessed with the future and at the same time structured by and in continuous dialogue with its past.

Author : Jean-Louis Laurent Rocca
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 190 pages
File Size : 37,34 MB
Release : 2015
Category : History
ISBN : 0190231203

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Jean-Louis Rocca's admirably concise A Sociology of Modern China wears its scholarship lightly and paints an intimate and complex portrait of Chinese society, all the while avoiding cliches and simplifications. He delves into China's history and examines the country's many different social strata so as to better understand the enormous challenges and opportunities with which its people are confronted. After discussing the long march toward reform and the crises along the way - among them the 1989 protests which culminated in the events in Tiananmen Square and elsewhere - Rocca dedicates the second half of the book to the major questions facing the country (or, at the very least, its political elites) today: new forms of social stratification; the interaction between the market and the state; growing individualism; and the pressures exerted by social conflict and political change. In eschewing culturalist visions, Rocca thoroughly and successfully deconstructs received wisdom about Chinese society to reveal a thriving nation and its people.

Author : Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 1054 pages
File Size : 15,44 MB
Release : 1990
Category : History
ISBN : 9780393307801

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In this widely acclaimed history of modern China, Jonathan Spence achieves a fine blend of narrative richness and efficiency. The Search for Modern China offers a matchless introduction to China's history.

Author : Rana Mitter
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 170 pages
File Size : 39,27 MB
Release : 2008-02-28
Category : History
ISBN : 0191578797

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China today is never out of the news: from human rights controversies and the continued legacy of Tiananmen Square, to global coverage of the Beijing Olympics, and the Chinese 'economic miracle'. It seems a country of contradictions: a peasant society with some of the world's most futuristic cities, heir to an ancient civilization that is still trying to find a modern identity. This Very Short Introduction offers the reader with no previous knowledge of China a variety of ways to understand the world's most populous nation, giving a short, integrated picture of modern Chinese society, culture, economy, politics and art. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Author : Jonathan Fenby
Publisher : Ecco
Page : 848 pages
File Size : 41,11 MB
Release : 2008-06-24
Category : History
ISBN :

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Clear and engaging, this is the definitive history of China, one of the most important political, economic, and cultural players in the modern world. 8-page color photo insert.

Author : Klaus Mühlhahn
Publisher : Belknap Press
Page : 737 pages
File Size : 49,72 MB
Release : 2019-01-14
Category : History
ISBN : 0674737350

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Klaus Mühlhahn situates modern China in the nation's long, dynamic tradition of overcoming adversity and weakness through creative adaptation--a legacy of crisis and recovery that is apparent today in China's triumphs but also in its most worrisome trends. Mühlhahn's panoramic survey rewrites the history of modern China for a new generation.

Author : Liang Luo
Publisher : University of Michigan Press
Page : 386 pages
File Size : 35,47 MB
Release : 2014-07-15
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0472052179

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Provides a new perspective on the Chinese avant-garde through the figure of artist and activist Tian Han

Author : Julia F. Andrews
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 383 pages
File Size : 30,68 MB
Release : 2012-09-24
Category : Art
ISBN : 0520238141

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“The Art of Modern China is a long-awaited, much-needed survey. The authors’ combined experience in this field is exceptional. In addition to presenting key arguments for students and arts professionals, Andrews and Shen enliven modern Chinese art for all readers. The Art of Modern China gives just treatment to an expanded field of overlooked artworks that confront the challenges of modernization.”—De-nin Deanna Lee, author of The Night Banquet: A Chinese Scroll through Time.

Author : Edwin E. Moise
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 294 pages
File Size : 47,47 MB
Release : 2013-08-21
Category : History
ISBN : 1317868439

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The past hundred years in China have seen almost continuous transformation and upheaval. From Confucianist monarchy to warlordism, from fanatically doctrinaire socialist tyranny to almost doctrineless social-capitalism, China has experienced political, cultural and economic disintegration, reunion, and revolution on an unprecedented scale. Beginning with the overthrow of the Emperor in 1911, Moise guides us through a century of ever-unfolding drama with characteristic clarity and balance. Examining the effects of the communist revolution, he argues that in the early days Mao Zedong established the most effective government China had ever known, and that even during the bizarre excesses and blood-letting of the Cultural Revolution, there were still issues that were dealt with in a rational and effective manner. Moving on to the developments since the death of Mao in 1976, in a section fully revised and updated for this new edition, Moise gives a nuanced account of the two sides of China: its spectacularly successful programme of capitalist economic development, and its continuing dictatorship. He contends that dictatorship is now much less total than it was until the mid-70s; although dissenters are still persecuted, their very existence is evidence of a significant loosening of repression. However, there is a heavy price being paid for the Chinese economic miracle. The environmental effects of this boom already stretch well beyond the borders of China. Modern Chinasends us a clear message: the rapid and fundamental change that has framed the last century has not slowed or stalled but acts as a pointer to the near certainty of significant further change. To understand China’s future we must understand its past. Edwin E. Moise is Professor of History at Clemson University, South Carolina and a specialist in the history of China and Vietnam. His previous works include Land Reform in China and North Vietnam(1983) and Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War (1996).