Chinese Landscapes: The Village As Place

The studies collected in this volume were written by anthropologists, architects, geographers, historians, a sociologist, and a veterinary ecologist. Taken together they form an exceptionally coherent survey of Chinese villages, ranging from the dry north to the humid southeast and southwest of this vast country. Going beyond books on Chinese vernacular architecture that focus on individual dwellings, this work examines the village ensemble itself, the various settings for the habitation, work, and leisure of China's large rural population.
Discussions of design, spatial layout, physical setting, settlement patterns, geomantic principles (fengshui), and evolutionary patterns set the stage for eighteen village case studies. Many villages still preserve characteristics that evoke a respect for and understanding of "old China," while others expose the drastic metamorphosis of recent decades. Villages are examined as places, emphasizing that which is visible; each village has its own order and complex of natural and human elements. Chinese Landscapes, though it focuses on the physical appearance of individual villages as they are situated within the constellation that comprises the Chinese landscape, suggests much about more general social, economic, and political patterns.