The Exemplary Society
The Exemplary Society
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Summary
The Exemplary Society examines traditional and modern Chinese beliefs about education, discipline, and social control. It describes the Chinese attitudes towards criminality, sex, youth culture, and other `disorders' of the modernization process. The resulting quest for social control through an exemplary educative and disciplinary society is analysed in this pathbreaking study.
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The Exemplary Society by Brge Bakken
In modern China, technocratic utopias go side by side with moral panics. The modernization process is seen as creating the `disorders' of criminality, sex, and modern youth culture. The official answer to disorder is an exemplary societyan educative and disciplinary society where `human quality' and model behaviour is advocated. Modern Chinese society, however, resists being reduced to the exemplary discipline of its social engineers, and strategies of `lying' and resisting control are routine. This pathbreaking study analyses traditional and modern Chinese beliefs about and reactions to education, discipline, human improvement, and social control. Although these reactions to modernity have a Chinese colouring, they are not exclusive to the Chinese culture. By describing the terra incognita of China, The Exemplary Society also describes something about ourselves.
This valuable study draws on a rich variety of Western and Chinese language sources listed in a comprehensive bibliographyThere is also an invaluable glossary of Chinese terms (including characters) for those wishing to carry out further reading in this field. Although the volume is grounded in sociological studies, it also makes an important contribution to the wider field of Chinese studies. It would be an appropriate and thought-provoking book for many postgraduate courses and should be of interest to all those with a serious interest in China. * China Quarterly 2001 *
Borge Bakken's study offers a convincing explanation of some of the values underpinning current campaigns and, more generally, China's approach to social control in the 21st century. It also offers important insights into the leadership's incremental approach to reform that has characterized Chinese politics for at leat the last five years. * China Quarterly 2001 *
richly documented and pathbreaking study * R.E.Entenmann, Choice, Vol.38, No.3, Jan 2001 *
informative and reflective ... an interesting book that integrates various sources of knowledge on China, historical and contemporary, and relates western sociological theories to modern Chinese society and vice versa. ... a thoughtful book. ... with ... insightful views on the nature of the Chinese exemplary society. * Tan Chee-Beng, International Sociology, Vol 16, No 1 *
a brave and challenging attempt to bridge the political and epistemological crevasses which litter the path to a more inclusive understanding of the meaning of modernization. ... To a non-China specialist, this book is full of insights and represents an extraordinary intellectual effort in bringing together different traditions of thought. ... there is much to enthral and ponder upon in terms of the big questions of social and political thought. It is highly reommended. * Hilary Standing, International Sociology, Vol. 16, No.1 *
Borge Bakken's study offers a convincing explanation of some of the values underpinning current campaigns and, more generally, China's approach to social control in the 21st century. It also offers important insights into the leadership's incremental approach to reform that has characterized Chinese politics for at leat the last five years. * China Quarterly 2001 *
richly documented and pathbreaking study * R.E.Entenmann, Choice, Vol.38, No.3, Jan 2001 *
informative and reflective ... an interesting book that integrates various sources of knowledge on China, historical and contemporary, and relates western sociological theories to modern Chinese society and vice versa. ... a thoughtful book. ... with ... insightful views on the nature of the Chinese exemplary society. * Tan Chee-Beng, International Sociology, Vol 16, No 1 *
a brave and challenging attempt to bridge the political and epistemological crevasses which litter the path to a more inclusive understanding of the meaning of modernization. ... To a non-China specialist, this book is full of insights and represents an extraordinary intellectual effort in bringing together different traditions of thought. ... there is much to enthral and ponder upon in terms of the big questions of social and political thought. It is highly reommended. * Hilary Standing, International Sociology, Vol. 16, No.1 *
Børge Bakken is Senior Researcher at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) in Copenhagen. He has previously been Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of Oslo and Research Fellow in the Norwegian Research Council.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780198295235 |
| ISBN 10 | 0198295235 |
| Title | The Exemplary Society |
| Author | Børge Bakken Copenhagen) |
| Series | Studies On Contemporary China |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Year published | 2000-03-09 |
| Number of pages | 532 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |