Studies of rural poverty and development in western China, despite the topic's urgency and importance, are lacking. Much of this gap has been filled by Chinese scholarship that is rarely translated into English, limiting access outside of China to specialists. Further, translation is difficult, and even accurate translations often sound stilted. Moreover, to the westerner, this scholarship sometimes seems to be overly sanguine and based on scant field knowledge, to incorporate little more than a catalogue of easily-accessible descriptive statistics with little analysis, or to improvise impractical ivory tower recommendations.
Happily, Zheng Yisheng's edited volume Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development in Rural China generally avoids these pitfalls, providing a readable (despite a few typos) and interesting set of perspectives on development, poverty, and the environment in western China (the term “Western China,” included in the original title, is omitted in this translated volume). Most chapters provide a useful historical context...
