Directory of Officials and Organizations in China: A Quarter-Century Guide (review)

498 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall 1995 Ko's tendency toward overstatement need not detract from the value of this book if we read it as a lawyer's brief rather than a judge's ruling. This is not a laborious "on the other hand" sort ofbook that scrupulously weighs the evidence on both sides ofeach issue, carefully assessing and comparing the significance of each item. Rather, as defense lawyer, Ko is responding to accusations that Chinese women let themselves be pushed around. She has skillfully marshaled evidence to make the case for Chinese women as capable of taking care of themselves, vitalized by the changes taking place around them, and able to get husbands and fathers to do things for them when necessary. So long as readers take on the role of judge themselves, placing the worlds revealed here in the contexts ofthe worlds revealed through such sources as fiction, the biographies of self-sacrificing widows , and legal cases offamily disputes, this book can greatly enrich our knowledge of Chinese women and the worlds in which they lived. Ko has unearthed a lot ofoverlooked material, letting us hear women's voices, forcing us to qualify much ofthe received wisdom about the ways women could make the class and family systems work for them. Patricia Ebrey University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign m Malcolm Lamb. Directory ofOfficials and Organizations in China: A Quarter-Century Guide. Contemporary China Papers, Australian National University. Armonk and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1994. xxxiii, 1,355 pp. Hardcover $160.00. Malcomb Lamb has done the China field a great service by producing this wideranging reference volume. It represents a prodigious effort to collate information on more than ten thousand individuals who have held official posts in some 793 organizations at one point or another during the period between October 1968 and June 1993. The value ofsuch a guide lies in its coverage, its ease of use, and its accuracy. Lamb's coverage ofmajor positions is comprehensive. Indeed, he takes par-© 1995 by University tkular care to provide information even on organizations that were abolished ofHawai'i Pressduring this period. He also specifies clearly all pertinent organizational mergers and divisions, thus enabling the reader, with minimal effort, to trace the organizational metamorphoses that have so characterized the Chinese political land- Reviews 499 scape. Lamb also indicates the post from which or to which an individual moved, when that post is outside the scope of the bodies covered in this directory. All instances ofconcurrent officeholding are also noted. In sum, for major organizations Lamb provides a very sensible and helpful array ofdata: incumbents and their tenure, as best as can be determined; their concurrent, previous, and subsequent posts; dates of officeholding; and changes in an organization itself (amalgamations, divisions, and abolitions). He uses footnotes to add helpful information on both individuals and organizations. A quick check shows that, not surprisingly, some of the more peripheral posts have received less than comprehensive treatment, even when information on their incumbents is readily available. Lamb lists, for example, only Li Shenzhi as a director ofthe Chinese Academy ofSocial Sciences' Institute ofAmerican Studies, and he gives 1980 as the sole date on which Li was so identified (p. 762). But Zi Zhongyun and then Wang Jisi have often been mentioned as Li's successors , and Li himselfwas frequently publicly identified in this post after 1980. For other CASS Institutes, the coverage is better. Overall, though, one senses some erosion of effort regarding the more peripheral offices. Myriad problems attend virtually any approach to organizing such a directory . Every choice made will be welcomed by some and will inconvenience others. Still, Lamb's choices on organization seem unnecessarily complex and subjective, and I found that they make the volume more cumbersome to use. The organizations covered are divided into sections lettered sequentially from A to DD. Lamb's description of the arrangement of entries within these numerous sections is as follows. In section A, organizations are listed in order ofimportance, but with the departments ofthe Central Committee appearing in alphabetical order and abolished organizations at the end of the section. In section B, organizations are listed as in section...