Combining social, political, and cultural history, this book examines the contestation over space, history, and power in the late Qing and Republican-era reconstruction of the ancient capital of Suzhou as a modern city. Located fifty miles west of Shanghai, Suzhou has been celebrated throughout Asia as a cynosure of Chinese urbanity and economic plenty for a thousand years. With the city's 1895 opening as a treaty port, businessmen and state officials began to draw on Western urban planning in order to bolster Chinese political and economic power against Japanese encroachment. As a result, both Suzhou as a whole and individual components of the cityscape developed new significance according to a calculus of commerce and nationalism. Japanese monks and travelers, Chinese officials, local people, and others competed to claim Suzhou’s streets, state institutions, historic monuments, and temples, and thereby to define the course of Suzhou’s and greater China’s modernity.

This volume constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Cross-Cultural Design, CCD 2014, held as part of the 16th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCI International 2014, held in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, jointly with 13 other thematically similar conferences. The total of 1476 papers and 220 posters presented at the HCII 2014 conferences was carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers address the latest research and development efforts and highlight the human aspects of design and use of computing systems. They thoroughly cover the entire field of human-computer interaction, addressing major advances in knowledge and effective use of computers in a variety of application areas. The 76 papers included in this volume deal with the following topics: cross-cultural product and service design; cross-cultural issues in interaction; social aspects and implications of cross-cultural design; cross-cultural issues in e-commerce, marketing and branding; cross-cultural design for knowledge sharing and learning; cross-cultural design for the smart city and cross-cultural design for creativity.

This book examines cities of the Jiangnan region of south-central China between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries, an area considered to be the model of a successfully developing regional economy. The six studies focus on the urban centers of Suzhou, Hangzhou, Yangzhou, and Shanghai. Emphasizing the regional focus, the authors explore the interconnections and sequential relationships between these major cities and analyze common themes such as the development of handicraft industry, transport and commerce, class structure, ethnic diversity and internal immigration, and the social and political pressures generated by developments in manufacturing, taxes, and government politics. The book provides a valuable resource on commercial development and internal economic and social development in pre-modern China, particularly on specific regional development and the historical role of traditional Chinese cities.

In an unprecedented exploration of space and power in rural Xinjiang, a Chinese region home to the Muslim population of the Uyghurs, this book adopts a grounded theory approach and a trans-ethnic perspective into the complex and sensitive topic of land issues and agricultural land evictions in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. By exposing the dynamics of land acquisition and power building in the politically contested space of the region, the author shows how state owned land in a key commercial and cultural hub on the new Silk Road became a commodity, in a context of violent human interactions driven by power. Relying on previously undisclosed material and on a unique field research among farmers and local authorities, the author retraces the steps of Uyghur peasant workers, entangled in a suspended situation between abandoned rural villages, migration and urban alienation, in a book which explores agency in violent processes of social change, and adds concepts and insights to the current knowledge of how we become modern citizens. The microcosm of Kashgar, an oasis-city in Xinjiang, acts as a mirror reflecting socio political dynamics framing people’s identity. Shedding light on one of the most inaccessible region in China, this book is a key read for academics and a broader public willing to get a clearer view of one of the sourest power struggle in the most contested region within the next superpower.

Drawing on a wealth of primary materials detailing the city's history, customs, and urban construction as well as on recent work in Chinese history, culture, and religion, Yinong Xu examines characteristics of building and transformation in pre-modern Suzhou, characteristics that, while particular to the city's own historical development, reflect or were determined by factors representative of China's urban history in general.".

A political scientist and an urban architect explore China’s odyssey to become an ecological civilization and transform its massive, unsustainable, urbanization process into one that creates hundreds of eco-cities. The resulting From Eco-Cities to Sustainable City-Regions is the first book-length study combining analysis of politics and power, urban design and planning issues derived from the co-authors’ interdisciplinary research, and on-site fieldwork from their political science and architectural area specialties.

This volume represents the proceedings of the 3rd Eurasian Conference on Educational Innovation 2020 (ECEI 2020). Thes conference is organized by the International Institute of Knowledge Innovation and Invention (IIKII), and was held on February 5-7, 2020 in Hanoi, Vietnam.ECEI 2020 provides a unified communication platform for researchers in a range of topics in education innovation and other related fields. This proceedings volume enables interdisciplinary collaboration of science and engineering technologists. It is a fine starting point for establishing an international network in the academic and industrial fields.

This compendium offers a textured historical and comparative examination of the significance of locality or "place," and the role of urban representations and spatial practices in defining national identities. Drawing upon a wide range of disciplines - from literature to architecture and planning, sociology, and history - these essays problematize the dynamic between the local and the national, the cultural and the material, revealing the complex interplay of social forces by which place is constituted and contributes to the social construction of national identity in Asia, Latin America, and the United States. These essays explore the dialogue between past and present, local and national identities in the making of "modern" places. Contributions range from an assessment of historical discourses on the relationship between modernity and heritage in turn-of-the-century Suzhou to the social construction of San Antonio's Market Square as a contested presencing of the city's Mexican past. Case studies of the socio-spatial restructuring of Penang and Jakarta show how place-making from above by modernizing states is articulated with a claims-making politics of class and ethnic difference from below. An examination of nineteenth-century Central America reveals a case of local grassroots formation not only of national identity but national institutions. Finally, a close examination of Latin American literature at the end of the nineteenth century reveals the importance of a fantastic reversal of Balzac's dystopian vision of Parisian cosmo-politanism in defining the place of Latin America and the possibilities of importing urban modernity.

As the world continues to evolve, globalization remains a key topic area among scholars and practitioners across disciplines and industries. It is essential for managers to stay informed and look out for potential threats that can negatively affect global operations. Geopolitics and Strategic Management in the Global Economy is a pivotal reference publication featuring the latest scholarly research on an international view of the challenges and opportunities organizations face in the global marketplace. Including coverage on a broad range of topics such as firm competitiveness, project management, and social capital, this book is ideally designed for academicians, researchers, students, and managers seeking current research on best ways to handle international management issues.