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China: Modernization in the 1980's
Contributor(s): Cheng, Joseph Y. S. (Author), Cheng, Joseph Y. S. (Editor), Baker Jr, Timothy (Translator)
ISBN: 962201416X     ISBN-13: 9789622014169
Publisher: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press
OUR PRICE:   $27.72  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: January 1989
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | Asia - China
- History | Social History
- Religion | Religion, Politics & State
Dewey: 951
LCCN: 89043567
Physical Information: 1.6" H x 6.1" W x 9" (2.20 lbs) 682 pages
Themes:
- Cultural Region - Chinese
- Religious Orientation - Taoism
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
Over the last forty years, our vision of Chinese culture and history has been transformed by the discovery of the role of religion in Chinese state-making and in local society. The Daoist religion, in particular, long despised as "superstitious," has recovered its place as "the native higher religion." But while the Chinese state tried from the fifth century on to construct an orthodoxy based on Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, local society everywhere carved out for itself its own geomantically defined space and organized itself around local festivals in honor of gods of its own choosing--gods who were often invented and then represented by illiterate mediums. Looking at China from the point of view of elite or popular culture therefore produces very different results.

John Lagerwey has done extensive fieldwork on local society and its festivals. This book represents a first attempt to use this new research to integrate top-down and bottom-up views of Chinese society, culture, and history. It should be of interest to a wide range of China specialists, students of religion and popular culture, as well as participants in the ongoing interdisciplinary dialogue between historians and anthropologists.