Ma Xiangbo and the Mind of Modern China

Updated with examples through 2010, this classic study examines the disruptive effects of disasters on patterns of human behavior and the routine operations of government, and the conditions under which even relatively minor crises can lead to system breakdown. Integrating case studies of emergency management with studies of collective behavior, the author identifies factors that contribute to successful government handling of disaster situations and distills insights that can be used to improve these capacities at all levelsfederal, state, and local.

Biography

Ruth Hayhoe is professor and chair of the Higher Education Group, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Her teaching and research interests include comparative higher education, international academic relations, higher education in Asia, and dimensions of Chinese education in interaction with the West. She is the author of China’s Universities and the Open Door (1989), and China’s Universities 1895–1995: A Century of Cultural Conflict (1995). Her edited books include Knowledge Across Cultures: Universities East and West, Education and Modernization: The Chinese Experience (1992), and China’s Education and the Industrialized World: Studies in Cultural Transfer (1987). Fifteen years of her adult life were spent in China, teaching in secondary and tertiary institutions, as well as heading up the cultural and academic affairs section of the Canadian Embassy in Beijing from 1989 to 1991.,
Yongling Lu is a doctoral candidate in Higher Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.