Book Review
Journal of Geographical Sciences.
2011, 21(3):
574-574.
One of the noticeable consequences of China's opening up and integration into the world economy has been an explosive demand for intellectual dialogue and knowledge exchange between China and the outside world. Despite this new demand for globalization in knowledge production, existing geographical research undertaken within and outside China has remained by and large separated because of the formidable barriers of different ideological convictions, linguistic and cultural traditions, and paradigms and practices of knowledge production. In the studies of economic geography, the gap between China and the Western world has remained so pronounced that a “bridge” or a “common ground” is badly needed (Yeung and Lin, 2003; Liu, 2009; Lin, 2009a). This situation will become self-evident when one compares the Chinese journal Jingji Dili with the English journal Economic Geography— two journals with the same title and yet totally different contents to address different audience. Against this backdrop, World Economic Geography produced by Du Debin and his associates stands out as a timely, bold, and ground-breaking contribution that fills an awkward gap existing between China and the Western world in the studies of economic geography.