Beijing Time by Michael Dutton (English) Paperback Book

Description: Beijing Time by Michael Dutton, Hsiu-ju Stacy Lo, Dong Dong Wu Deeply immersed in the culture, everyday and otherworldly, this anthropological tour, from ancient cosmology to Communist kitsch, allows us to see as never before how the people of Beijing—and China—work and live. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description "Where is the market?" inquires the tourist one dark, chilly morning. "Follow the ghosts," responds the taxi driver, indicating a shadowy parade of overloaded tricycles. "Its not called the ghost market for nothing!" And indeed, Beijing is nothing if not haunted. Among the soaring skyscrapers, choking exhaust fumes, nonstop traffic jams, and towering monuments, one discovers old Beijing-newly styled, perhaps, but no less present and powerful than in its ancient incarnation. Beijing Time conducts us into this mysterious world, at once familiar and yet alien to the outsider. The ancient Chinese understood the world as enchanted, its shapes revealing the mythological order of the universe. In the structure and detail of Tiananmen Square, the authors reveal the city as a whole. In Beijing no pyramids stand as proud remnants of the past; instead, the entire city symbolizes a vibrant civilization. From Tiananmen Square, we proceed to the neighborhoods for a glimpse of local color-from the granny and the young police officer to the rag picker and the flower vendor. Wandering from the avant-garde art market to the clock towers, from the Monumental Axis to Maos Mausoleum, the book allows us to peer into the lives of Beijingers, the rules and rituals that govern their reality, and the mythologies that furnish their dreams. Deeply immersed in the culture, everyday and otherworldly, this anthropological tour, from ancient cosmology to Communist kitsch, allows us to see as never before how the people of Beijing-and China-work and live. Notes Deeply informed by urban theory and exhibiting an assured feel for the city, Beijing Time paints a vivid picture of Beijings tumultuous transformations. At once anthropological and historical, and with its sights set on both the official and nonofficial city, on both urban form and urban experience, this book offers a wonderfully textured guide to contemporary Beijing, written with wit and panache. There is simply no other study quite like this. -- Gyan Prakash, Princeton University Author Biography Michael Dutton is Professor of Politics at Goldsmiths, University of London, and the author of Streetlife China and the prizewinning Policing Chinese Politics. Hsiu-ju Stacy Lo is an independent scholar. Dong Dong Wu is an independent scholar. Review Deeply informed by urban theory and exhibiting an assured feel for the city, Beijing Time paints a vivid picture of Beijings tumultuous transformations. At once anthropological and historical, and with its sights set on both the official and nonofficial city, on both urban form and urban experience, this book offers a wonderfully textured guide to contemporary Beijing, written with wit and panache. There is simply no other study quite like this. -- Gyan Prakash, Princeton UniversityBeijing Time is an exhaustive, modern portrayal of a city and its people, written with flair from the belly of the Beijing dragon. As China scrubs away the history of the Cultural Revolution and repaints the city in capitalist strokes, old Beijing is being replaced by a more tourism-oriented version… This is a vividly textured account of a city in transition. -- Laurence Mackin * Irish Times *Beijing Time is a wide-ranging travelogue that succeeds in capturing the contradictions of what the authors call a monstropolis. They eschew simplification in favor of Beijings dazzling intricacy… We are shown a city with astonishing human capital, a city where, barely a decade after Tiananmen, the people and the government appear to have reached some tentative concord between dissent and coercion. -- Tod Hoffman * Montreal Gazette *This engrossing book merges travel writing, sociology and streetwise reportage. From Maos tomb to designer malls, karaoke bars to Pandaman, who parodies Olympic hype, these intellectual sleuths search for clues to the hidden city beneath the headline stories. Their Beijing hums with ghosts of the past, as well as with every kind of futuristic dream. -- Justin Wintle * The Independent *Beijing Time is an intriguing puzzle portrait of pieces of China, from an explication of how Communist construction disrupted the traditional flow of qi through the city to scenes from ragpickers slums, karaoke bars, ghost markets where collectors search for authentic Maoist ephemera, former factories converted to avant-garde artists spaces, and a good deal more in only 238 well-illustrated pages. Through it all, China emerges as something quite different from the totalitarian nightmare of some peoples fears, something more like the European monarchies of the 19th century where arts, culture and independent thinking flourished alongside the activities of secret police—not a free society in the American sense, necessarily, but one where plenty of people seem to be free just the same, and maybe more free, for the risks they might run, than Americans would give them credit for. -- Samuel Wilson * Think 3 Institute [think3institute.blogspot.com] *The book starts with Beijing places, beginning of course at the centre of the Chinese universe, Tiananmen Square, and starts to unpack their meanings for people today. It is interspersed with long encounters with interesting, ordinary Beijingers: a policewoman, rubbish sifters, a seedy businessman working contacts in a karaoke joint. -- Rowan Callick * The Australian *A fascinating cultural mapping of modern Beijing. Here are ring roads that resemble successive reworkings of the old city wall; here is the district for saw-gash CDs (imperfect discs dumped by western record labels on the Chinese market), where the young bob for Sex Pistols albums… The book is a useful street-level corrective to received ideas. In particular, its interviews with citizens—an ex-policeman, scavengers in plastic-bag mountains, luminaries of the art scene, cafe owners who dream of being film directors, members of a kind of granny Neighborhood Watch scheme—are wonderfully humane. -- Steven Poole * The Guardian * Promotional Deeply informed by urban theory and exhibiting an assured feel for the city, Beijing Time paints a vivid picture of Beijings tumultuous transformations. At once anthropological and historical, and with its sights set on both the official and nonofficial city, on both urban form and urban experience, this book offers a wonderfully textured guide to contemporary Beijing, written with wit and panache. There is simply no other study quite like this. -- Gyan Prakash, Princeton University Review Quote This engrossing book merges travel writing, sociology and streetwise reportage. From Maos tomb to designer malls, karaoke bars to "Pandaman," who parodies Olympic hype, these intellectual sleuths search for clues to the hidden city beneath the headline stories. Their Beijing hums with ghosts of the past, as well as with every kind of futuristic dream. Details ISBN0674047346 Author Dong Dong Wu Short Title BEIJING TIME Publisher Harvard University Press Language English ISBN-10 0674047346 ISBN-13 9780674047341 Media Book Format Paperback Year 2010 Imprint Harvard University Press Place of Publication Cambridge, Mass Country of Publication United States Illustrations 73 halftones, 4 maps DEWEY 951.156 Residence Newport UK Release Date 2010-05-01 Publication Date 2010-05-01 AU Release Date 2010-05-01 NZ Release Date 2010-05-01 US Release Date 2010-05-01 Pages 288 Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:26301318;

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