Geography in China
Trends in Research and Training
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2897205 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Marwyn S Samuels (University of British Columbia, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1977 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 406 |
| Publication date | 1977-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Pacific Affairs (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0030-851X • E-ISSN: 1715-3379 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2757169 |
| OpenAlex | W2317711519 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
T HOUGH LITTLE STUDIED by Western Sinologists, geographical thought and literature in China has few rivals in the history of pre-industrial society.1 Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the cornucopian fang-chih (gazetteers) or local geographies which, numbering in the thousands, served generations of scholars and administrators alike in a display no other class of Chinese literature does, [of] the diversity of local customs, the perpetuity in local institutions, the variety in fauna and flora, and the great literary and cultural traditions which give distinction to a place and bind a people to it.2 Ranging widely from classics like the l24 Kung and the Shan Hai Ching to such folkloric geographies as the Hsi ru Chi, and in scope from the vast encyclopedias of the post-Yuian era and the global geographies of the Ming and the Ch'ing Dynasties to the minutiae of the fang-chih, the art and science of geography in old China played a vital role in traditional learning and statecraft. It is perhaps no exaggeration to suggest that if the supreme scholarly craft of Confucian China was the study of history, its intellectual complement was an equivalent fascination with matters geographical. What of that fascination in contemporary China? How has the tradition of geographical science been fitted to the demands of the new revolutionary society? According to an article in Hung-ch'i (Red Flag) on November i, I972, a geography guided by Marxism-LeninismMao Tsetung Thought has been set in motion, both as a guide to criticize bourgeois geography and to help establish dialectical materialist and historical materialist world outlook. How then, does it differ in theory and method from its bourgeois alternative? And
Archaeology · China · Economic geography · Geography · Meteorology · Physical geography · Regional science · Training (meteorology) · Chinese history and philosophy · Japanese History and Culture · Philippine History and Culture
| Citations per year | 0.07 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1980 - 2023 (44) |
| Highly cited | No |