Write a book review of the book: China’s New Socialist Countryside by Russell Hardwood. The mantra of Development, as specifically embodied in two broad government policies of “The Great Development of the West” and “The New Socialist Countryside” is having a transformative effect on the entire landscape and society of China, and for this class we examine their effects on the minority regions of the Southwest. Your primary text here is Russell Harwood’s China’s New Socialist Countryside, which tells the story in the Nu River Valley. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this case study examines the impact of economic development on ethnic minority people living along the upper-middle reaches of the Nu (Salween) River in Yunnan. In this highly mountainous, sparsely populated area live the Lisu, Nu, and Dulong (Drung) people, who until recently lived as subsistence farmers, relying on shifting cultivation, hunting, the collection of medicinal plants from surrounding forests, and small-scale logging to sustain their household economies. China’s New Socialist Countryside explores how compulsory education, conservation programs, migration for work, and the expansion of social and economic infrastructure are not only transforming livelihoods, but also intensifying the Chinese Party-state’s capacity to integrate ethnic minorities into its political fabric and the national industrial economy. This should not only be all about a summary of the book, but also should have some critic about the issue and some self thought.
