Christopher Howe

A study of China's urban employment problems set in the context of growth and fluctuations in the urban economy between 1949 and 1957. Its main objectives are to analyse the size and determinants or urban employment change, and to trace the evolution both of Chinese thinking about employment and the institutions of labour control that reflected this thinking in day-to-day administration. Important source materials used in this book, many of which had not previously been used by western scholars, include the journal of the Ministry of Labour and local newspapers and journals. These materials are used to show the ways in which the urban employment problem varied according to the geographical location and level of administration from which it was viewed. Dr Howe examines the changing urban economic environment and the dimensions of urban employment and its evolution and relates them to the broader understanding of economic change in China.

This book provides an analysis of changes in the level and structure of wages in China from the 1920s to 1972. In the first part of the study Dr Howe uses this analysis as a starting point to evaluate the degree to which wage policy objectives have been achieved, particularly since 1949. The author explains both fluctuations in policy and discrepancies between plans and reality and examines the mechanisms of wage determination. In so doing, he makes it clear that even in a highly planned society there are some limits to what is possible in the regulation of wages and incomes. He goes on to argue that the wage system can only be understood within a common analysis of the whole framework of incentives and controls affecting the workforce. This approach sheds new light, not only on the development of the wage system but on economic aspects of the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath.

Updated to reflect advances in the field, this introduction provides a broad, but concise, coverage of recombinant DNA techniques. Written for advanced undergraduates, graduates and scientists who want to use this technology, emphasis is placed on the concepts underlying particular types of cloning vectors to aid understanding and to enable readers to devise suitable strategies for novel experimental situations. An introduction to the basic biochemical principles is presented first. Then PCR and cloning using E. coli hosts and plasmid, phage and hybrid vectors are described, followed by the generation and screening of libraries and how to modify, inactivate or express cloned sequences. Finally genetic manipulation in a range of other organisms is discussed, including other bacteria, fungi, algae and plants, insects and mammals. A series of 'real-life' biological problems are also presented to enable readers to assess their understanding of the material and to prepare for exams.

Shanghai is Asia's largest city and for over a hundred years has played a critical role both in China's internal political arid economic affairs, and in the history of international relations in the Far East. Before 1949, Shanghai was the principal point of western and, later, Japanese penetrations of China. Under foreign control the city saw the beginnings of modern economic growth, of new forms of westernized education and culture, and of fierce social and political conflicts. This book is a comprehensive study of the way in which old Shanghai was transformed and developed by the Communist Party between 1949 and the later 1970s. It throws light on the paradox that a city that for years was the object of hostility and distrust has become in the Post-Mao era the spearhead of China's new programme for economic and technological modernization. The book is divided into sections dealing with political, economic and cultural change, and with the special characteristics of Shanghai's rural s

Synthesizing a wide range of scholarship Christopher Howe traces the history of Japanese trade over four centuries and locates the sources of Japan's current commercial and financial strength in event