Review by Choice Review
To describe China's urbanizing processes, anthropologist Guldin coins three terms--"townization," "citization," and "deagriculturalization." He and a team of Chinese researchers conducted "hit-and-run" surveys in several dozen sites in four provinces of south China, examining villages expanding and transforming into towns and towns becoming small cities. Males predominated in rural-to-urban population flows with the relaxation of migration controls, resulting in the feminization of a declining agricultural sector. Although official reforms in the 1980s created surges of rural prosperity, the dissolution of communes resulted in eliminating free rural health care and other social welfare benefits. Guldin examines the political and lifestyle changes attendant on the townization of villages and the increasing flows of capital, goods, and people. He notes that, despite these and other transformations sweeping through China, some things change little such as the entrenched strength of local power structures and the persistence and deepening of social inequalities. The book provides only an indirect answer to the title's question by suggesting that peasants will fade away and reappear as citizens of a thoroughly urban society. All collections. E. Wellin emeritus, University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
