Provocative analysis of how China's culture will affect that nation's current and future behavior; by Jenner (History/Australian National Univ.). China is China is China—that, in brief, is Jenner's well- articulated message: that the weight of history, bureaucracy, language, philosophy, and national character make real change in China—though urgently necessary for economic reasons—virtually impossible. Jenner sees Communism as largely illusory in its effect, and the Party as little more than a ``club...the collective identity of China's ruling class...a shenshi or gentry...whose members will be able to adapt themselves to whatever follows....'' Real change, the author says, has occurred only when ``alien colonial power in Singapore, Hong Kong [or] Taiwan [was able] to break the continuity of Chinese bureaucracy and to permit growth and development.'' Cultural sophistication, a solid grasp of Asian history, crisp details, and clear conclusions lend credibility to Jenner's argument as he penetrates Chinese culture to the language itself and its peculiar ability, through lack of the usual verb tenses, to create ambivalence about time—and thus about change. Jenner examines the unequaled Chinese historical record and what its limitations reveal: a fatalistic and cyclical view of human experience that's the antithesis of the Western conviction that significant change can and will occur. And from the saga of the dynasties, he discerns an overwhelming tendency for the Chinese state to re-establish itself, whatever the current vicissitudes, in remarkably similar monolithic form. A consort's uncanny description of the aged Mao living exactly like an emperor, cut off from reality and reading ancient Chinese history, drives this point home. Jenner argues persuasively that China may be largely immutable, but he never really deals with today's ultimate agent of change: the information avalanche, which buried even the Soviet Union.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-7139-9060-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1992
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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