"In this collaborative effort by two leading scholars of modern Chinese history, Ming K. Chan and Arif Dirlik investigate how the short-lived National Labor University in Shanghai was both a reflection of the revolutionary concerns of its time and a catalyst for future radical experiments in education. Under the slogan "Turn schools into fields and factories, fields and factories into schools," the university attempted to bridge the gap between intellectual and manual labor which its founders saw as a central problem of capitalism and which remains a persistent theme in Chinese revolutionary thinking ... The authors bring to bear the perspectives of institutional and intellectual history on their examination of the structure and operation of the university, presenting new material on its faculty, curriculum, physical plant, and history. They demonstrate how the prominent features and problems of Chinese higher education during the early years of the Guomindang regime prefigure the Marxist program of the Cultural Revolution and continue to have an influence on revolutionary thinking in the situation of China today"--Jacket.

From Field to Factory explores the impact of a modern factory on a Bengal agricultural village and the impact of the village's social and ideological systems on the factory. Morton Klass provides ethnographic data on life and work in both the village and factory and assesses theories of community, caste, village religion, and industrialization. This book will interest sociologists and anthropologists interested in South Asia, community structure, caste, village-level religion, and the anthropology of work. Previously published in 1978 by the Institute for the Study of Human Issues.

Introduction by George WoodcockIt would not be an exaggeration to describe this book as the central work of Kropotkin's writing career. In one way or another, it occupied more than twenty years of his life. It is a work of argument and suggestion rather than dogmatic statement, and the very tentativeness of this great book make its perceptions all the more relevant.With at one time Kropotkin's view of our future might have been regarded as a Utopian dream, today, as a result of the growing realization that the world's resources of energy and raw materials are finite, that food is our most precious commodity and that people's working lives are futile and stultifying, the lessons of this book, for both the rich world and the poor, are topical and hopeful.In addition to a general introduction to the most significant aspects of Kropotkin's life and thought, George Woodcock has prepared a comprehensive afterword to each essay, allowing the reader to fully see Kropotkin's ideas in the context of the world a century later.Is the 9th volume of the The Collected Works of Peter Kropotkin.Table of contentsEditor's IntroductionPreface to the Second EditionPreface to the First EditionChapter 1The Decentralization of IndustriesEditor's Afterword to Chapter 1Chapter 2The Possibilities of AgricultureEditor's Afterword to Chapter 2Chapter 3Small Industries and Industrial VillagesEditor's Afterword to Chapter 3Chapter 4Brain Work and Manual WorkEditor's Afterword to Chapter 4Chapter 5ConclusionEditor's Epilogue1994: 255 pages, index

This book was written by the anarchist Peter Kropotkin, and discusses the decentralization of industries, possibilities of agriculture, and uses of small industries. Through the book, he sought to connect anarchism with science, based on sociological tendencies. The book was compiled from essays he had published in Nineteenth Century and Forum between 1888 and 1890. Before this book on economics, Kropotkin had been known for his militant activity on behalf of international anarchism and writings on Siberian geography.

Alan Sears examines education reform in relation to a broad process of cultural and economic change. His book makes the case that education reform is one aspect of a broad-ranging neo-liberal agenda that aims to push the market deeper into every aspect of our lives by eliminating or shrinking non-market alternatives. The author begins by showing that advocates of education reform have had to make the case that the current system is not working. This sets the ground for an examination of the so-called 'Common Sense Revolution, ' a claim that drastic change was required to redesign government policies to fit a changing world. Lean production methods are a crucial component of this changing world, and broader social and cultural change is now required to consolidate the emerging order built on the spread of these methods. Education reform is designed to recast the relations of citizenship, contributing to the cultural and social change promoted through the social policy of the lean state.