The Book(s) on China

What Would Marco Polo Think? Twenty Reviews/Previews

By Charles Hayford -- Library Journal, 6/1/2007

Does the world—and do libraries—really need new books on China, the largest, fastest-changing, and perhaps most contradictory country in the world? Yes, ten months after LJ's previous roundup of new bibliographic offerings on China, here are the latest works on this challenging global phenomenon—now poised to take the world stage with the summer 2008 Beijing Olympics (motto, "One World One Dream") while reckoning with intense challenges regarding pollution, product contamination, corruption, and the establishment of political legitimacy.

What's more, as China changes, its past reveals itself newly to us: we note matters we had failed to focus on before and ask different questions of its history.

We no longer ask, "Why is China so weak, chaotic, and poor?" as we did 50 years ago. Nor do we ask, "How soon is China going to fall apart?" as we did after the Tiananmen Incident of 1989. We ask, "How did China get so rich and so organized?" and "What is China's effect on my life going to be in the next couple of decades?

"The first group of books below imparts China's history and culture, sometimes through biography. The second group looks at the country as a business and economic phenomenon, especially in relation to its twin star, India. These books examine China's prosperity and the price paid for it, the tremendous disparities that the country embodies, and the possible consequences for the rest of the world. Completeing the roundup is a briefly noted list citing current and forthcoming titles that may also be considered.

All of the books reviewed here are readable and reliable. Select depending on the size of your collection and the interests of your patrons, but do select!

August (former Beijing bureau chief, Times of London) draws on his observations of China's almost lawless business underworld to write a rattling good story: Lai Changxing rose from illiterate poverty to amass a fortune by bribery, networking, and brass. Eventually, he fell foul of the law, or at least of political rivals, and became China's most wanted man. August's search for Lai takes him through the frenetic China that we had always suspected but never saw so vividly analyzed. Recommended for all libraries.

A father-and-daughter team who between them have published many books on Asia (e.g., The Girl from Purple Mountain) here provides 100 A-to-Z chapters offering extensive coverage of practical Chinese history, culture, and customs. Topics range from banquets, bargaining, and body language to the one-child policy, Three Gorges Dam, and Wen Jiabao (who became premier in 2002). The tone is light, but the information is well chosen for general readers and travelers. Recommended for any level library.

An NPR correspondent, Gifford lives up to one's expectations in these charming but ultimately serious sketches of his trip across China. The tone is relaxed, and the book's strength lies in Gifford's observations of the roadside life and personalities he meets. Much space is given to quick summaries of history and culture and to stories familiar from other journalists. However, readers unfamiliar with China who are looking for an introduction will welcome this. Recommended for medium and larger libraries looking for such a book.

Kang (Chinese language & literature, Yale) gives us confessions not of a criminal or a political rebel but of a free spirit. Though his story concerns events familiar from other memoirs, with the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) taking center stage, the perspective is fresh, the writing fresher, and the analysis—which is built into the stories rather than added afterwards—is freshest of all. We see how families and local politics worked then by seeing how they changed, undercutting many clichés about China and communism. If your collections need another China memoir, this one is recommended.

China is set to host the 2008 Olympics, and those who want a readable, well-grounded history of the host city will be hard put to do better than this succinct and nicely illustrated volume. Since Beijing was the capital for much of the last 1000 years, this amounts to a history of China as well. Recommended for medium-sized and larger public libraries and as well as college libraries.

The Long March of 1934–35 is still taught to schoolchildren in China as the heroic story of Mao's Red Army evading pursuit and saving the revolution. Jung Chang and Jon Halliday's Mao: The Unknown Story challenged the truth of that story, and Sun's new book is one of a number recently to support those uncovered truths. Sun does not use the considerable body of Western and Chinese scholarship, extensive printed Chinese sources, or party records, instead retracing the route of the march and interviewing surviving witnesses about the horrors they survived. The result is a readable historical travelog that is not likely to change minds one way or another. For large libraries and large China collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 3/1/07.]

These nimble and knowledgeable essays from a respected historian are mostly reprinted from small circulation journals. They include commentaries on such recent events as the Tiananmen Incident, as well as light but erudite historical thought pieces, such as one on former President Grant's world tour in 1879. Others look at the fate of globalized franchises such as McDonald's and Marxism, the challenges of historical and cross-cultural analogies, and sympathetic critiques of reporting on China. Recommended for medium-sized and larger libraries, as well as for the personal reading of librarians interested in China.

Included here are 18 essays reprinted from the last decade of Current History, the magazine in which top scholars summarize current developments for a general audience. Coverage is more detailed than in an encyclopedia yet is concise and focused. Sections are devoted to foreign policy and national security, economic power and social issues, and domestic politics and governance. The introduction asks whether China's transformation is sustainable. Though it will not keep you on the edge of your chair with suspense, this is an excellent resource for all libraries.

The editors (international security studies and economics & history, respectively, Univ. of Pittsburgh) offer analysis from heavy-duty experts on China's boom and its implications for international systems in Asia. Part 1 contains five essays on China's rise, which was based on the rule of technocrats and a policy of liberalization, asking whether there are limits and whether China's commercial diplomacy is now a promise or a threat. Four essays in Part 2 examine the balance of influence in Asia among China, the United States, and other powers, asking whether the idea of China's peaceful rise is roadmap or fantasy. Recommended for libraries needing a rigorous but accessible study.

The World Bank has been central in helping to plan and evaluate the economic growth of China and India over the last generation, as both turned from poor and ideologically repressed countries into models of economic growth. Here, World Bank experts consider whether future growth will be held back. They survey international finances, energy and emissions, uneven growth, and the relation of governance and economic growth and conclude that challenges exist but need not be decisive. The analysis will be clear to anyone who passed Economics 101. Recommended for larger collections.

Hom and Mosher, both associated with Human Rights in China (HRIC), founded by Chinese scientists and scholars to promote a human rights agenda in their country, present 27 short essays, interviews, and reports from dissidents, activists, and journalists. These form a mosaic that challenges the image of middle-class professionals in brassy Shanghai and stately Beijing successfully leading their country into global consumerism and mass consumption. Instead, we see abandoned migrants, exploited coal miners, prostitution, imprisoned priests, persecuted Falun Gong members, and incompetence. Recommended for larger libraries.

American national interest was long promoted not just by money and force but by "soft power," that is, democratic ideals, consumerism, and even rock 'n' roll. Kurlantzick (special correspondent, New Republic) argues that Americans have squandered this advantage and that China will step in to fill our "soft power deficit." After Deng Xiaoping's death in 1997, new and worldly Chinese leaders used the aura of China's economic success and political stability to court Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This "charm offensive" has garnered trade, resources, and respect while America can't understand why the world won't do what it says. An important and accessible book; highly recommended for all medium and larger collections.

Popkin and Iyenagar, both analysts at Gartner Research, the world's largest IT research and advisory firm, provide crisp summaries for busy executives about the development, structure, and future of computer science and electrical engineering in China and India, puncturing the notion that those industries depend on low wages and government subsidy. Indeed, they argue, China and India have developed world-class education in these areas, with governments that encourage entrepreneurship. Business readers will find this book appealing, as will anyone who wants to see how the world is developing. Suitable for middle and larger collections.