Rural China on the Eve of Revolution: Sichuan Fieldnotes, 1949-1950 - Hardcover

Skinner, G. William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0295999411 ISBN 13: 9780295999418

Publisher: University of Washington Press, 2016

Synopsis

In 1949, G. William Skinner, a Cornell University graduate student, set off for southwest China to conduct field research on rural social structure. He settled near the market town of Gaodianzi, Sichuan, and lived there for two and a half months, until the newly arrived Communists asked him to leave. During his time in Sichuan, Skinner kept detailed field notes and took scores of photos of rural life and unfolding events.

Skinner went on to become a giant in his field―his obituary in American Anthropologist called him “the world’s most influential anthropologist of China.” A key portion of his legacy arose from his Sichuan fieldwork, contained in his classic monograph Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China. Although the People’s Liberation Army confiscated Skinner’s research materials, some had been sent out in advance and were discovered among the files donated to the University of Washington Libraries after his death. Skinner’s notes and photos bring to life this rare glimpse of rural China on the brink of momentous change.

About this title

About the Authors

G. William Skinner (1925-2008) was the dean of sinological anthropology in the West, a major theorist of family systems, and a pioneer in applying spatial analysis techniques to the study of agrarian societies. He was the author of Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China (Association for Asian Studies, 1965) and Chinese Society in Thailand: An Analytical History (Cornell University Press, 1957); and the coeditor of The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford University Press, 1977) and The Chinese City between Two Worlds (Stanford University Press, 1974).

Stevan Harrell is professor emeritus of anthropology and environmental and forest sciences at the University of Washington. He is the author of Ways of Being Ethnic in Southwest China (University of Washington Press, 2001) and An Ecological History of Modern China (University of Washington Press, 2023); and editor of the University of Washington Press book series Studies on Ethnic Groups in China.

William Lavely is professor of sociology at the University of Washington. He is a coeditor of Rural China on the Eve of Revolution: Sichuan Fieldnotes, 1949–1950 by G. William Skinner (University of Washington Press, 2016) and the author of many articles on demography and the family in contemporary China.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0295999411
• ISBN 13: 9780295999418
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 280
• Editor: Harrell Stevan, Lavely William