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This title explores the remarkable religious renaissance that has reformed, revitalized and renewed the practices of Buddhism and Daoism in Taiwan. Madsen connects these developments to Taiwan's transition to democracy and the burgeoning needs of its new middle classes.
Social Transformations in Chinese Societies is the official annual of The Hong Kong Sociological Association. It publishes articles of original research that addresses theoretical, methodological, or substantive issues of sociological significance about social transformations in Chinese societies. The focus is mainly on Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, the Mainland, Singapore, and Chinese overseas. Review essays of exceptionally high quality are also welcome. Book jacket.
Chen Village has been acclaimed as a modern classic. The book's first two editions presented an enthralling and beautifully written account of a Chinese village in the throes of Maoist revolution--with tumultuous political campaigns, power struggles, a Cultural Revolution rebellion, and radical shifts in social customs--followed by dramatic changes in village life and local politics during the Deng Xiaoping period. Now, more than a decade and a half later, the authors have returned to Chen Village, and in three new chapters they explore astonishing developments. The once-backwater village is today a center of China's export industry, where more than 50,000 workers labor in modern factories, ruled over by the village government. The new chapters show how the latest swing in fortunes has affected the Chens' self-identity, customs, and entrepreneurship, while laying bare the stark situation of the workers who crowd in from poor parts of China's countryside. This new edition of Chen Village illuminates, in microcosm, the recent history of rural China up to the present time.
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.
Leading experts on China offer their enlightening analysis on one of the most crucial and complex questions facing the future of international politics. Moving toward open markets and international trade has brought extraordinary economic success to China, yet its leadership still maintains an authoritarian grip over its massive population. From repressing political movements to controlling internet traffic, China’s undemocratic policies present an attractive model for other authoritarian regimes. But can China continue its growth without political reform? In Will China Democratize?, Andrew J. Nathan, Larry Diamond, and Marc F. Plattner present valuable analysis for anyone wondering if, wh...
What defines "happiness," and how can we attain it? The ways in which people in China ask and answer this universal question tell a lot about the tensions and challenges they face during periods of remarkable political and economic change. Based on a five-year original study conducted by a select team of China experts, The Chinese Pursuit of Happiness begins by asking if Chinese citizens’ assessment of their life is primarily a judgment of their social relationships. The book shows how different dimensions of happiness are manifest in the moral and ethical understandings that embed individuals in specific communities. Vividly describing the moral dilemmas experienced in contemporary Chinese society, the rituals of happiness performed in modern weddings, the practices of conviviality carried out in shared meals, the professional tensions confronted by social workers, and the hopes and frustrations shared by political reformers, the contributors to this important study illuminate the causes of anxiety and reasons for hope in China today.
After suffering isolation and persecution during the Maoist era, the Catholic Church in China has reemerged with astonishing vitality in recent years. Richard Madsen focuses on this revival and relates it to the larger issue of the changing structure of Chinese society, particularly to its implications for the development of a "civil society." Madsen knows China well and has spent extensive time there interviewing Chinese Catholics both young and old, the "true believers" and the less devout. Their stories reveal the tensions that have arisen even as political control over everyday life in China has loosened. Of particular interest are the rural-urban split in the church, the question of chu...
THE GOOD SOCIETY examines how many of our institutions- from the family to the government itself- fell from grace, and offers concrete proposals for revitalizing them.
From the "Red Menace" to Tiananmen Square, the United States and China have long had an emotionally tumultuous relationship. Richard Madsen's frank and innovative examination of the moral history of U.S.-China relations targets the forces that have shaped this surprisingly strong tie between two strikingly different nations. Combining his expertise as a sinologist with the vision of America developed in Habits of the Heart and The Good Society, Madsen studies the cultural myths that have shaped the perceptions of people of both nations for the past twenty-five years. The dominant American myth about China, born in the 1960s, foresaw Western ideals of economic, intellectual, and political fre...
"This interesting volume of essays on contemporary religion and its ambivalent relationship to modernity not only serves as a testimony to the intellectual influence of Robert Bellah, it establishes a new school of comparative religious and social thought. This Bellahian school--at the intersection of sociological, theological, and contemporary philosophical thinking--has roots in Durkheim and Weber, borrows insights from Marx, Foucault, and Bourdieu, and finds its clearest voice in the writings of Bellah himself. The essays by some of Bellah's colleagues and former students that have been gathered in this volume address some of the most sagacious of these Bellahian themes: the religious dim...