The Chinese - Couverture souple

Becker, Jasper

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0195149408 ISBN 13 : 9780195149401

Editeur : Oxford University Press Inc, 2002

Synopsis

In The Chinese, Jasper Becker, China's premier western correspondent, strips the country of its myths and captures the Chinese as they really live. For nearly two decades Becker has lived in China, and reported from areas where most visitors do not reach. Here he is at his most candid, reporting from all over the country: from tiny, crowded homes in the swollen cities of the southeast rim to a vast, secret network of thousands of defense bunkers in the northwest. He exposes Chinese society in all of its layers: from remote, illiterate peasants; to the rising classes of businessmen; to local despots; the twenty grades of Party apparatchicks; to the dominant, comparatively small caste of Party leaders who are often ignorant of the people they rule. Becker lets the Chinese speak for themselves, in voices that are rich and moving. He teaches a great deal about the magnitude--and the false face--of China's vaunted economic boom, and further shows the pervasive institutionalized crime that has risen out of economic poverty. In all, Becker reveals a China very different than our long-held assumptions depict. The Chinese is the hidden story of people of the world's largest nation--a nation so poorly understood and so vital to the future.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

China has entered the 21st century as the world's last surviving empire, a vast bureaucratic dictatorship with close to 1.3 billion people drawn from 56 different races. The People's Republic of China, part Communist, part capitalist, is the heir to an imperial dynastic tradition that stretches back over more than 2000 years.;This book provides a general introduction to the Chinese, taking the reader on a journey from the poorest, those living in remote mountainous regions, to the most powerful families in the capital. In between, it looks at how workers in state-owned enterprises and the new capitalists are navigating the transition from a planned to a market economy, and at who are the winners and losers in the scramble to make this new consumer market yield golden profits.;The catastrophic failure to engineer the most egalitarian society on earth has now opened the way to one of the most unequal. This book looks at rural China - the plight of barefoot doctors, hard-pressed rural teachers and migrant workers - against the backdrop of the urbanization of a billion peasants; and at how urban China, with its booming coastal cities and special economic zones in which millions slave in sweatshops, is being rebuilt.;The new market economy is also driving the need for a new bureaucracy, smaller armed forces, a modern legal system, a freer intelligentsia and, ultimately, a different political system.;Having explained earlier attempts to modernize China, the book concludes by asking whether the world's oldest continuous civilization will succeed in the new century.

Présentation de l'éditeur

China enters the 21st century as the world's largest surviving empire, a vast bureaucratic dictatorship with close to 1.3 billion people drawn from 56 different races. This text provides a general introduction to the Chinese, taking the reader on a journey from the poorest, those living in remote mountainous regions, to the most powerful families in the capital. In between it looks at how workers in state-owned enterprises and the new capitalists are navigating the transition from a planned to a market economy, and at who are the winners and losers in the scramble to make this new consumer market yield golden profits.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Oxford University Press Inc
• Date d'édition: 2002
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0195149408
• ISBN 13: 9780195149401
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 493
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Ufficio Anagrafiche Messaggerie; ufficio.anagrafiche@meli.it; ; Via Verdi, 8; Assago Milano; 20090; Italie