From Booklist
In nine chapters of 20 to 50 pages, different authorities cover "Geography and Climate," "Peoples and Languages," "Systems of Thought and Belief," and "Health and Medicine," among other broad topics. Each is clearly presented and extensively subdivided and concludes with a list of key, mostly book, research resources. Today's beginning researcher would likely welcome Internet and video resources as well. Tables and charts accompany several sections. Part 2 is a 200-page chronology of key dates and events. Part 3 is an A-Z of several hundred one- to two-paragraph entries on topics, from Academia Sinica to Zuo Zongtang. Part 4 provides 50 pages of information about traveling to China, including things to know and places to go. An appendix gives a conversion chart for Pinyin to Wade-Giles and a rather inadequate map of modern China (showing only six Chinese cities and no rivers) and its neighboring countries. A far more detailed map, or several, would have been helpful. The detailed, 82-page index gives separate entries for, and fails to cross-reference, the identical Yangtze (Yangzi) and Chang Jiang rivers. The "Geography and Climate" section consistently and confusingly cites the Chang Jiang River as China's longest, greatest river and fails to identify it with the Yangtze.
Despite relatively minor inadequacies, the wealth of well-organized information in Facts about China will make it useful even to those who are not new to the study of China. Recommended for public, academic, and high-school libraries. RBB
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
