The China Reader: The Reform Era

by Orville Schell

Book Overview

Current Affairs/Asian Studies Perhaps no nation in recent history has undergone as total a transformation as China has in the past twenty-five years. For Chinese leaders, the death of Mao Zedong, the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679763872
• ISBN13: 9780679763871
• Release Date: December 1998
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 576 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Enjoyable and Informative!

'The China Reader'offers a good selections of reading on Chinese culture, politics, education, media, economy and foreign relations in the post Mao era. Though some of the articles should prove useful in the long run, many of them will be hopelessly dated in a very short time (the fate of any book dealing with contemporary Chinese issues).Nevertheless, I found the book to be very interesting and useful in augmenting my understanding of current affairs in China. I particularly liked the articles in the chapter entitled `Society' that dealt with crime, the environment, and poverty and population issues.Schell and Shambaugh are `old China hands' and know their material well- so this book won't be disappointing for serious China watchers. I recommend it.

A Great Resource on China

In 1998 I had the wonderful opportunity to visit the People's Republic of China for One Month with the American Forum for Global Education. I participated on this trip as a representative of a New York City High School in the Bronx.As part of the preperation for this trip of a lifetime we did a series of intensive workshops on Chinese history, culture, politics, society etc. During one of these workshops we were told the following which I feel describes this wondeful collection of primary and secondary sources on modern China. We were told that if you visit China for a week you can write a book on China. If you visit China for a month you can write a magazine article on China. And if you visit China for a year you could barely write an article. In short, the less of China you see the more you think you know and the more of China you see the less you think you know.And I know from from more than just reading how true this is. But this collection illustrates this fact very well. This is a great collection of primary sources from Chinese and world leaders as well as some great secondary source articles by many of the China experts.I especially enjoyed reading the contributions of editor Orville Schell. I think of all the China experts he is most on the money and I found his comments the most interesting. I encourage anyone interested in China to look at his book Mandate of Heaven.China is a complex issue. The legacy of Mao, their attempts at capitalism without democracy, relations with Taiwan, the occupation of Tibet, and of course trade and human rights. Again, I feel the more we know about China the less we know. But regardless of your stance on any of these issues: trade, Taiwan, Human Rights, Tibet anyone looking at this collection should walk away understanding why we need to have as much contact with China as possible. We have many issues with China and many disagreements but a nation of 1.2 billion people can not be ignored or punished by isolation.This is a great book but as with anything involving China more information often means more questions and less answers.I also highly recommend the recent "A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China", Mark Salzman's classic "Iron and Silk", Simon Winchester's "River at the Center of the World", and the recent novel "The Peking Letter" to anyone interested in China.