Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng's China - Softcover

Greenhalgh, Susan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520253396 ISBN 13: 9780520253391

Publisher: University of California Press, 2008

Synopsis

China's one-child rule is unassailably one of the most controversial social policies of all time. In the first book of its kind, Susan Greenhalgh draws on twenty years of research into China's population politics to explain how the leaders of a nation of one billion decided to limit all couples to one child. Focusing on the historic period 1978-80, when China was just reentering the global capitalist system after decades of self-imposed isolation, Greenhalgh documents the extraordinary manner in which a handful of leading aerospace engineers hijacked the population policymaking process and formulated a strategy that treated people like missiles. Just One Child situates these science- and policymaking practices in their broader contexts—the scientization and statisticalization of sociopolitical life—and provides the most detailed and incisive account yet of the origins of the one-child policy.

About this title

Review:

"Highly engaging."--Siumi Maria Tam"Chinese Cross Currents" (01/01/2009)

"Compelling. . . . Masterfully crafted. . . . Just One Child is a bold, brilliant book."-- (11/01/2012)

"Greenhalgh is our most surefooted guide to China's adventure in mass birth planning . . . . As a study of scientific policy-making in China, Just One Child is without peer."-- (08/22/2008)

"The first step in questioning the one-child policy will be an open and truthful exploration of its origins and history. This book is an admirable leap towards that goal."-- (10/17/2008)

"Fascinating."--The Lancet (11/22/2008)

"Greenhalgh finds the missing pieces of the puzzle."--Signs (07/06/2010)

"Penetrating analysis."--Nature (07/01/2008)

About the Author:

Susan Greenhalgh is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. She is the coauthor of Governing China's Population: From Leninist to Neoliberal Biopolitics and the author of Under the Medical Gaze: Facts and Fictions of Chronic Pain (UC Press).

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0520253396
• ISBN 13: 9780520253391
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 436