The Newsletter 60 Summer 2012

Analysing China's changing society

Matthijs de Boer

Reviewed publications:

Wan, Guanghua (ed.) 2008
Inequality and Growth in Modern China. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 211 pages, ISBN 9780199535194 (hardcover)

Li Zhang (ed.) 2010
In Search of Paradise: Middle-Class Living in a Chinese Metropolis. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 248 pages, ISBN 9780801475627 (paperback)

Over the last thirty years China has opened up to the world and the global market. From a largely rural society under socialist rule the country has seen intensified urbanization throughout the past three decades during its transition to a – what the Chinese authorities call – socialist market economy (Wang, 2004; Friedmann, 2005).1 The effects of China’s economic reformation are undeniably recognizable throughout the world. Nevertheless, great attention in the academic world has gone to the effects on China itself too.

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