The Soviet Far East: Geographical Perspectives on Development by Allan Rodgers Review by: Denis J. B. Shaw Area, Vol.

24, No. 2 (Jun., 1992), pp. 187-188 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20003096 . Accessed: 17/02/2012 06:59
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Blackwell Publishing and The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Area.

http://www.jstor.org

Book reviews 187

see some attention being devoted to such issueswithin the introduction, and consideration of the costs and benefits incurred in Malaysia's drive for' modernisation '. Related to this, throughout the book there is an over-reliance on government statistics. This is in part understandable, but compares unfavourably with the lackof contribution fromminority peoples themselves. Some qualitative or ethnographic material would have considerably enhanced the ratherdry content and style, with toomuch detail cluttering up the text itself rather being separated out intomore tables, diagrams andmaps. As regards theory, most of the papers are concerned with empirical material rather than conceptual issues. The editors grapple valiantly with the concepts of marginality and periph erality in their introduction, but, again, Iwould have wished for a greater concentration on, for example, the role of minorities in the global economy, consideration of the concept of locality within the Malaysian context andmore on theories of uneven development as aids to explanation of the processes under consideration here. With these points in mind, this book does fill a useful niche, and I am sympathetic to its general conclusion thatmore notice must be taken byMalaysian officials of the development needs and wishes of theminorities themselves. I found the chapters by Vokes on agricultural development and poverty eradication in peripheral areas ofMalaysia; by Emby on theOrang Asli regrouping scheme; the two chapters by King on Sarawak and that by Jawan on the Dayak in Sarawak particularly informative. On balance, therefore, this text is a reasonable addition to the development literature on South East Asia. Ian Cook

Liverpool Polytechnic

The

Soviet

Far East:

geographical

perspectives

on development

edited by

Allan Rodgers
London: Routledge, 1990, 318 pp, ?50.00 hardback ISBN 0-415-02406-4 These days almost any book on theUSSR will be considerably dated by the time it ispublished, unless it sets out to be a history book in the first place. This volume reflects the state of affairs round about the latterhalf of 1988, afterGorbachev had been in power for just over three years. By no means all the chapters take us even that far. Since then a great deal has happened: the Soviet economy has plummeted to new depths of crisis, there have been ever strengthening forces operating in the direction of increased republican, regional, even district and urban autonomy, new moves have been made tomarketise the economic system and to open it up to foreign participation, new developments have occurred on the disarmament front. By the time this review appears, thingswill no doubt have changed even further.To talk about development prospects in these circumstances appears to verge on the foolhardy. Little on the currentmaelstrom would have been apparentwhen this book was contracted for, or even when itwas completed and sent to the publishers. In any case, the Soviet Far East is such an inherenty interesting territory that almost any book iswelcome, particularly one written by a set of geographers with a high degree of expertise in the field. The region lies at the eastern extremity of theUSSR, endowing that pre-eminently continental (if not utterly European) state with a Pacific presence. It occupies almost 30 per cent of the national territory but contains less than three per cent of its population. It is characterised by its extreme remoteness from the economic core of the country and by amarkedly harsh environment. It lies adjacent to one of the fastest-growing economic regions on earth and is regarded as a storehouse of natural resources. Yet the practically uniform message of this book is that its development will be a long and expensive business, in fact one that is hardly viable in the immediate future without amuch greater degree of foreign involvement than has yet been apparent. There are signs that that greater degree of foreign involvement will become a reality with current and projected changes in Soviet trade policy, though the effectsmay be counteracted to an unknown extent both by other repercussions ofmarketisation and by the vagaries of theworld market in natural resources. In other words, the future is as uncertain now as itwas when this

188

Book reviews

book was written in 1988 and thoughmuch has changed in the details, it is hard to dispute the broad conclusions. The essays are of a high standard (which ismore than can be said of some of themaps) and examine many facets of the environmental, resource, industrial and trade-related potential of the region. The focus is obviously economic-geographic (with some interesting material on themilitary dimension). One would have liked to seemore on the fascinating social, political and ethnic issues (we now know farmore than before, for example, on the plight of northern minorities), but sadly to commission such essayswould probably havemeant recruiting non-geographers. Even so this valuable book is testimony to the fascination which the resource frontier has for the geographical mind; would that the same fascination were exercised by the metropolitan core. Denis J B Shaw of Birmingham University

of contemporary The geography China: the impact of Deng Xiaoping's decade edited by Terry Cannon and Alan Jenkins London: Routledge, 1990, 316 pp, I&14.95paperback ISBN 0 4415 00102 1 The editors of The geography of contemporary China, and the contributors, have written an excellent and much-needed book. China's development is a notoriously difficult field of study, and it is only too easy to take refuge in oversimplification. The book successfully avoids this danger. It is easy to read and at the same time pays due regard to the complexities and difficulties inherent in any study and interpretation of the reforms implemented inChina since 1978. The main aim of this volume is to provide an introduction toChina's changing geography changes which have been determined largely by government policies. The book is not restricted to the period since 1978, for it is argued that in order to understand the changes which the reforms have brought about, a historical perspective is required. The book comprises twelve chapters including the introduction and a postscript. The chapters do not have to be read in order, although there is a logical progression. The introduction laysout the basic political and administrative context, noting key political and ideological tensions. The following ten chapters focus on those issueswhich are regarded as central to an understanding of China's contemporary geography: regional policy (Cannon); the historical influence (Edmonds); the physical environment (Derbyshire); population (Jowett); rural policies (Leeming and Powell); industry, energy and transport (Howard); urbanisation (Tang and Jenkins); foreign investment and trade (Philips and Yeh); the impact of economic development on the environ ment (Glaeser); and strategy and geopolitics (Jenkins). The postscript considers the events that occurred immediately after theTiananmen Massacre in June 1989. A few questions arise from a reading of this book. Is it entirely satisfactory to imply thatwhat has happened in Communist China can best be analysed in three 'periods'? Is it always valid to assume clear causal links between 'geographical' changes and changes in economic policy? Why is there so little emphasis on the interaction of the reforms implemented in different sectors of the economy? Also, why are some of themajor writers on China not at least referred to?One has the uncomfortable feeling that theEditors and some of the other contributors are a little too self-consciously and defensively geographical in their approach. Written forA-level and undergraduate students, this book provides an introductory textbook on contemporary China that is lucid, readable and authoritative. It is very well produced and it contains a number of excellent maps and some helpful touches-like the chronology of major events from theOpium Wars right up to the events of June 1989 in Beijing. There is also an interesting and valuable selection of case studies. The geography of contemporaryChina will be welcomed by all those wishing to understand the often dramatic events that have been taking place inChina over the past decade or so. R Hodder London School of Economics