Restless China

Reviews / Votes

[An] excellent interdisciplinary collection with chapters on everything from courtship to consumerism. * The Wall Street Journal * The book's material, culled from personal interviews, Chinese-language periodicals and websites, and other sources, is remarkably rich and wide-ranging, as is the expert analysis of its thirteen contributors. * Los Angeles Review of Books * In a rapidly evolving China, there have been real economic gains for different social classes, but injustice and political corruption remain. Through a variety of case studies, this book seeks to offer a better understanding of what it means to be Chinese today. * Survival: Global Politics and Strategy * [A]s the editors of this timely volume put it, 'What does it mean now to be Chinese?'. . . .[A]nyone wishing to get a sense of the popular ferment that lies beneath the rapid growth and strict political controls emphasized in daily headlines will find much of value in this book. * Foreign Affairs * The editors of Restless China have provided us with a stimulating and wide-ranging collection of essays exploring important issues and trends in contemporary China. The book would be a useful addition to reading lists for undergraduate courses on contemporary Chinese popular culture and urban social issues. Readers will certainly understand the editors' characterization of China as restless, but it is likely that a range of other adjectives will also come to mind as they make their way through these rich and provocative analyses. * The China Journal * Restless China sets the same high standards as Unofficial China and Popular China, the previous very well-received compilations from the editors. In a crowded marketplace, this volume stands out by focusing on the most exciting current developments in Chinese society and popular culture, and by a close examination of Chinese language sources that reveal what the Chinese themselves are thinking about and debating as they seek an appropriate value system and identity to reflect the new prosperity, all under the continuing influences of the Maoist legacy and the impact of globalization. As with the previous volumes, Restless China will be great for teaching and stimulating class discussion. -- Stanley Rosen, University of Southern California For 25 years Perry Link, Richard Madsen, and Paul Pickowicz, three of the most insightful Western scholars studying China, have collaborated in studying the life and thought of Chinese people. This is the third volume in their series, pulling together recent work by Westerners and Chinese. The contributors have read widely in Chinese literature on the internet and engaged in long conversations with their Chinese friends. Many of them have conducted lengthy fieldwork in China. They highlight fascinating examples that reveal the issues faced by ordinary citizens: how they are treated by officials after they have been involved in accidents, jokes they tell about the Soviet Union, preparations many well-to-do businesspeople make in case they decide to emigrate, discussions about the holy and the sacred, responses to food safety. The result is a book that has the vitality of first-hand experiences and that helps foreigners to better understand the restlessness so many feel as their country gets richer and their problems become more complex. -- Ezra F. Vogel, Harvard University