商品詳細

First published in Japanese in 1992 and awarded the Shibusawa Prize in 1993, this book represents an important mile-stone as the first major monograph by a mainland Chinese scholar trained outside China to be published in any language since the re-opening of the country in the last two decades, and it remains the most comprehensive study of a Chinese village currently available. Liu Village itself lies in Liaoning Province in the northeast of the country, a region little studied by previous researchers. The book describes the history, structure and changing fortunes of the village and its dominant lineage during successive periods of rule by republican politicians, warlords, the Japanese and the Communists, including the havoc wreaked by the Sino-Japanese war and the Cultural Revolution. The author also describes the impact on the villagers of the economic reforms of the 1980s. Agriculture in the area declined, with the men becoming increasingly involved in the building trade in neighboring urban centers, and the women in the commercial production of clothing. The effects of these changes on the relationships between parents and children, brothers, and husbands and wives are traced in detail, together with the increasing level of social conflict which has accompanied rising affluence.