Main entry:

Messmer, Matthias, 1967-

Title & Author:

China's vanishing worlds : countryside, traditions and cultural spaces / Matthias Messmer and Hsin-Mei Chuang.

Publication:

Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, 2013.

Description:

304 pages : illustrations ; 31 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 300-301).
Introduction -- Settlements of Fengshui -- Arts and architcture and labyrinths of space -- Rural aesthetics and modern kitsch -- Food, water, health and the environment -- Free education for all? -- The demise of the farmer -- Of coul, spirit, and the supernatural -- Entertainment as a refuge -- Preserving the cultural heritage -- How to govern the countryside.

Summary:

Just a few kilometers from the glittering skylines of Shanghai and Beijing, we encounter a vast countryside, an often forgotten and seemingly limitless landscape stretching far beyond the outskirts of the cities. Following traces of old trade routes, once-flourishing marketplaces, abandoned country estates, decrepit model villages, and the sites of mystic rituals, the authors of this book spent seven years exploring, photographing, and observing the vast interior of China, where the majority of Chinese people live in ways virtually unchanged for centuries. China's Vanishing Worlds is an impressive documentation in images and text of modernization's effect on traditional ways of life, and a sympathetic portrait of lives burdened by hardship but blessed by simplicity and tranquility. The scars of China's recent history and the decay of centuries-old traditions are made visible in this volume, but so is the lure and promise of technology and another life for young people. In the next twenty years, an estimated 280 million Chinese villagers will become city dwellers, leaving their ancestral homes in search of urban jobs and opportunities.

ISBN:

9780262019866 (hardcover ; alk. paper)
0262019868 (hardcover ; alk. paper)

Subject:

Rural population China.
Rural population China Pictorial works.
Villages China.
Villages China Pictorial works.
Population rurale Chine.
Population rurale Chine Ouvrages illustrés.
Villages Chine.
Villages Chine Ouvrages illustrés.
Rural conditions
Rural population
Villages
China Rural conditions.
China Rural conditions Pictorial works.
China
China Social life and customs.

Form/genre:

illustrated books.
Illustrated works
Ouvrages illustrés.

Added entries:

Chuang, Hsin-Mei, 1979-

Holdings:

Location: Library main 284416
Call No.: HN733.5 .M47 2013
Status: Available