The last days of old Beijing : life in the vanishing backstreets of a city transformed /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Meyer, Michael J., 1972-
Edition:1st U.S. ed.
Imprint:New York : Walker & Company, 2008.
Description:vii, 355 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm.
Language:English
Subject:
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/7239511
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:9780802716521
0802716520
Notes:Includes bibliographical references (p. [331]-339) and index.
Summary:A fascinating, intimate portrait of Beijing through the lens of its oldest neighborhood, Dazhalan. Meyer examines how the bonds that hold the neighborhood together are being torn by forced evictions as century-old houses and ways of life are increasingly destroyed to make way for shopping malls, the capital's first Wal-Mart, high-rise buildings, and widened streets for cars replacing bicycles. Beijing has gone through this cycle many times, as Meyer reveals, but never with the kind of dislocation and overturning of its storied culture now occurring as the city prepares to host the 2008 Summer Olympics--From publisher description.