Farewell to Peasant China: Rural Urbanization and Social Change in the Late Twentieth Century (review)

126 China Review International: Vol. 6, No. ?, Spring 1999 events, and circumstances that are not intrinsically rational, is ultimately limited in scope and value. Despite the criticisms above, as well as a concern for his unfamiliar transliterations ofvarious Chinese words (e.g., "Mao Zedung" instead ofMao Zedong or Mao Tse-tung (p. 37 and throughout), and "Xigang" instead ofXikang or Hsik 'ang (p. 44 and p. 135), The Snow Lion and the Dragon is a balanced, powerful, and thought-provoking critique ofthe Tibet Question, a problem that has persisted throughout the twentieth century and whose resolution still seems in doubt. This work is an excellent resource for all people interested in Tibet and China, and its scholarly distance and insightful analysis are long overdue in the field of Tibetan studies. William M. Coleman, IV Columbia University Bill Coleman is a graduate student in the Department ofHistory, where he is studying ethnic relations in China and Tibet. NOTES1. Melvyn C. Goldstein, A History ofModern Tibet, 1913-1951: The Demise ofthe Lamaist State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). Gregory Eliyu Guldin, editor. Farewell to Peasant China: Rural Urbanization and Social Change in the Late Twentieth Century. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997. xxiii, 287 pp. Hardcover $56.95, isbn 0-7656-0183-4. Paperback $24.95, isbn 0-7656-0089-7. Most research on urban growth in the Third World today continues to focus on rural-to-urban migration. The image of agricultural laborers deserting the countryside fits nicely with our standard notions ofdevelopment, and the image of migrants crowding the cities readily inspires our concerns about urban unemployment and political instability. Our stories about rural-to-urban migration, in turn, tend to take an almost conventional form, with the first half of the tale given over to "push factors"—the hardships ofrural life—and the second half y mversity enumerating "pull factors"—the benefits ofurban living. Between 1979 and 1992, China's urban population grew from roughly 93 million to 320 million people. Can China's story be seen as a conventional one? To a substantial degree, it can. Poorly endowed with farmland relative to the size ofits population, China under ofHawai'i Press Reviews 127 reform has been losing what farmland it has to desertification, deforestation, the overuse of chemical fertilizers, damage from other pollutants, and the sale ofland for industrial and commercial use. At the same time, improved yields, the greater use ofelectricity, advances in mechanization, and the greater efficiencies associated with the dismanding of the communes and the establishment of the household contract system have all served to undercut the demand for agricultural laborers. These "push factors" have contributed to a labor surplus in rural China today ofperhaps two hundred million people. The "pull factors" enticing large numbers ofthese people to China's cities include the promise ofbetter pay (with the income gap growing wider since the mid-1980s) and a demand for construction workers and for low-wage laborers in private enterprises, foreign joint ventures, and "dirty" service-sector jobs. But ifpart ofthe story of China's recent urbanization is a conventional one, another part more nearly merits the label "urbanization with Chinese characteristics." It is this part ofthe story that is the focus ofFarewell to Peasant China. As the book's subtitle indicates, it is a story of "rural urbanization"—of occupational mobility without geographical mobility, of "peasants becoming industrialists," ofvillages becoming towns, and oftowns becoming cities. The contributors to the volume are a team ofnine anthropologists and one political scientist, eight members from the People's Republic of China and two from the United States. The principal field sites, visited in 1992 and 1993, include Humen Township, midway between Hong Kong and Guangzhou in Guangdong Province; Anhai Township, halfway between Xiamen and Quanzhou in Fujian Province; Caitang Village, on the outskirts ofXiamen; Eshan County, 150 kilometers south of Kunming in Yunnan Province; Ruili City, also in Yunnan, located on the border with Burma; and Duilongdeqing County, a suburb of Lhasa, Tibet. In addition, the book reports research conducted in early 1996 in Beile, Yangjia, and Yangshufang, a town, a village, and a "farmer's town," respectively, all located within seventy kilometers of Dalian...