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"This book, in one convenient volume, is the first comprehensive exploration of all episodes of Xi Jinping's (b. 1953) life history and his political career, begun at age 17. Part I explores Xi's formative childhood and youth experience as well as his governance record spanning every administrative level from the village to the capital. Part II focuses on Xi's first five-year term as General Secretary (2012-2017) and as President (2013-2018). The author discusses all major issues including Xi's legitimacy building, consolidation of power, ideological redefinition, party rectification, anti-corruption efforts, and control of dissent up until 2018. He explores reforms in the economy, social policy, the judiciary, military, and foreign relations in the same period. Xi's political life mirrors the vicissitudes of the Maoist and reform eras, and sheds light on the regime's hopes and fears, strengths and weaknesses, and the changing zeitgeist of the times. By adopting a multi-disciplinary, comparative, and social science approach, this book unpacks and explains immensely complex phenomena, and offers fresh insights into the dynamics of governance in China encompassing both progressive and regressive features. It synthesizes a large corpus of cutting-edge research on China, takes issue with influential theories such as the "one party, two coalitions" view of Chinese politics, and rejects conventional wisdom that views China as a "frozen and closed system" under "one-man rule." This original contribution to scholarship explores how Xi Jinping and his team introduced an unprecedented transformation of Chinese society and politics, and initiated an activist global outreach"--

The dynamics of healthcare are shifting the patient paradigm in dramatic ways. The former patient is now both a consumer and a customer. The mantra of this new consumer is "convenient, fast, simple, and high value." Their expectations for healthcare are similar to what they experience in other industries such as transportation, banking, short-stay rental housing, retail shopping online, same-day deliveries, and more. Smart mobile devices enable the customer to conduct transactions at any place and at any time, and without waiting in line. Healthcare providers need to offer customer service experiences similar to Apple, Amazon, Nordstrom, and other benchmark companies in order to stay competitive. The mindset of the new patient-turned-consumer has fundamentally shifted and there is no looking back. Anyone connected to healthcare needs to learn the profiles of the new consumer, better understand their behaviors, and comprehend their expectations as customers who have a choice. The patient paradigm shifts tells you everything a successful business needs to know about the powerful new healthcare consumer.

This fascinating study of China's Great Leap Forward documents how Mao Zedong dominated and manipulated the policy process. Through exhaustive research of newly-available materials, the author discusses how the central ministries and the province of Guangdong implemented radical policies such as the backyard furnace campaign and the establishment of the People's Communes. He also demonstrates how these authorities, hard-pressed by impossible assignments andproduction targets, were compelled to focus on the fantastic rituals of mass mobilization to keep up appearances.

During 1957 and 1958 Mao was seized by a vision that the Chinese economy could develop rapidly in leaps and bounds by relying on intuition and mass spontaneity. As a consequence, he single-handedly launched a colossal mobilization campaign called the Great Leap Forward, which featured many radical policy innovations, including the people's communes. This book is the first in-depth and original study of policy formulation and implementation during the Leap to link the roles of Mao, the central leaders, the ministries, and the province of Guangdong. Rejecting the theory that the Leap was an outcome of bureaucratic politics and competition, the study establishes beyond doubt the supreme and dominant position of Mao in initiating and commanding the Leap. Alfred L. Chan goes further than propounding a Mao-dominant model by documenting the strategic and tactical moves made by Mao in order to neutralize all opposition and to carry the day. He also discusses in detail the policy roles and input of other top leaders on whom the improvising Mao relied to feed his imagination and to flesh out his policies.; In the chapters on the implementation of the Leap, Dr Chan explores how the ministries of Metallurgy and Agriculture were transformed from bureaucratic agencies into agents of mobilization, and how impossible targets forced them to keep up appearances by focussing on the rituals of mass mobilization. Similarly, other chapters on Guangdong show the simultaneously fervent, ritualistic, and desperate attempts to implement every hunch and intuition emanating from the centre. Exhaustive research using new material made available in the post-Mao era, as well as archives from the 1950s and 1960s, has yielded novel and original insights into the leader Mao, central decision-making, and policy implementation in the communist hierarchy.