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Feeding a billion: Frontiers of Chinese agriculture
318
Book reviews
therefore, that persons still interested check out their copy from the library before investing in these two volumes.
Gerrit Hoogenboom
Feeding a Billion: Frontiers of Chinese Agriculture. By S. Wittwer, Y. Yu, H. Sun and L. Wang. Michigan State University Press, East Lansing, Michigan, USA, 1987. 462pp. ISBN 87013-246-6. Price: US$30.00 (hardback). This book resembles a collection of articles for Readers Digest, with strengths and weaknesses to match. Its appeal lies in its entertaining and wide-ranging approach. The thirty-seven chapters fall roughly into four groups: a background section covering resources, eighteen chapters on individual crop or livestock enterprises, five on technologies (mechanisation, pest control, plastic for crop protection, and acupuncture), and the final chapters speculating about Chinese agriculture into the next century. The text is a mixture of technical detail, folklore, production statistics, history and fanciful description--and the whole is illustrated with photographs, drawings and maps. The weakness of the approach is that the book does not provide a rigorous scientific, technical or economic analysis of the agriculture of China (intentionally so, as the introduction implies). Some readers will therefore be frustrated by the inconsistency in the presentation of statistics, by the failure to follow up the early assertion that Chinese methods would be valuable in the African situation, and by the apparent oneupmanship of a number of statements that China did something first/ best/most often. To a western reviewer, the book appears uncritical, sometimes to an absurd degree--an impression which is epitomised in the choice of the title Feeding a Billion at a time when China's grain production is reportedly stagnant, population is projected to grow far faster than target, and there is widespread nervousness about economic reforms. Nevertheless it provides a most readable introduction to Chinese agriculture for those with an interest but little knowledge. W. S. Scanion
Primary Resources and Energy in the Third World. By John Soussan, Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc., New York. 1988.114 pp. ISBN 0-41500672-4. Price: £5.95 (paperback). This is one of a series of short, introductory books for students on development in the Third World. The book looks at two aspects of Third
Book reviews
therefore, that persons still interested check out their copy from the library before investing in these two volumes.
Gerrit Hoogenboom
Feeding a Billion: Frontiers of Chinese Agriculture. By S. Wittwer, Y. Yu, H. Sun and L. Wang. Michigan State University Press, East Lansing, Michigan, USA, 1987. 462pp. ISBN 87013-246-6. Price: US$30.00 (hardback). This book resembles a collection of articles for Readers Digest, with strengths and weaknesses to match. Its appeal lies in its entertaining and wide-ranging approach. The thirty-seven chapters fall roughly into four groups: a background section covering resources, eighteen chapters on individual crop or livestock enterprises, five on technologies (mechanisation, pest control, plastic for crop protection, and acupuncture), and the final chapters speculating about Chinese agriculture into the next century. The text is a mixture of technical detail, folklore, production statistics, history and fanciful description--and the whole is illustrated with photographs, drawings and maps. The weakness of the approach is that the book does not provide a rigorous scientific, technical or economic analysis of the agriculture of China (intentionally so, as the introduction implies). Some readers will therefore be frustrated by the inconsistency in the presentation of statistics, by the failure to follow up the early assertion that Chinese methods would be valuable in the African situation, and by the apparent oneupmanship of a number of statements that China did something first/ best/most often. To a western reviewer, the book appears uncritical, sometimes to an absurd degree--an impression which is epitomised in the choice of the title Feeding a Billion at a time when China's grain production is reportedly stagnant, population is projected to grow far faster than target, and there is widespread nervousness about economic reforms. Nevertheless it provides a most readable introduction to Chinese agriculture for those with an interest but little knowledge. W. S. Scanion
Primary Resources and Energy in the Third World. By John Soussan, Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc., New York. 1988.114 pp. ISBN 0-41500672-4. Price: £5.95 (paperback). This is one of a series of short, introductory books for students on development in the Third World. The book looks at two aspects of Third