China
Subtitle: In the Post-Utopian Age
Edition: 2Rev Ed edition
Publisher: Westview Press
Published: March 2000
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 648
ISBN-13: 9780813319865
Subjects: Travel & holiday guides; Contemporary Economic Situations And Conditions; Social Situations And Conditions; Social Science; Sociology; Politics/International Relations; China; Anthropology - Cultural; Sociology - General; 1976-; 1976-2000; Economic Conditions; Social conditions; Social life and customs
Description: Since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, critical changes have swept all levels of Chinese society. This text, which views contemporary China from a geographer’s perspective, assesses the questions inherent insuch rapid evolution. how do the Chinese manage to provide enough food for more than a billion people? In what ways are they restructuring and modernizing their economy? How have they been able to provide mass access to such services as health care, education, and housing? The author also delves into the relatively unexplored realm of everyday life in the new China. Why do so many want to leave the countryside and move to the cities? how has life changed for women after centures of Confucian oppression in China? And what does the future hold for China’s many ethnic minority groups?By providing answers to questions such as these, the book illustrates the centrality of geography to the study of China--a country where distance still acts as a major constraint on social and spatial interaction; where the population is so huge that demand for resources almost always outstrips supply; and where regional variations have produced a rich mosaic of human and physical characteristics.