Customer Reviews

Popular China: Unofficial Culture in a Globalizing Society

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Popular China is one of those rare academic books that you can read on trains, on the beach or by your office desk. All the chapters offer interesting, well-researched and well-written material whether it's about basketball fandom, gay experience, factory work, the epidemic of corruption or the laws regulating women's inheritance. The researchers combine an on-the-ground, intimate knowledge of their topic with the ability to place all of it in the broader context of Chinese history and culture. The editors, too, did a great job creating the framework in which these diverse issues and topics cohere into a meaningful whole.

While China is a moving target for researchers, due to its fast-paced social changes, and the data collected for this book must be at least 6 or 7 years old, it remains a valuable guide for all of those who seek a better understanding of a country that many see as a superpower in the making.