China's Transformations: The Stories beyond the Headlines

by Lionel M. Jensen (Editor), Timothy B Weston (Editor)

This successor volume to China beyond the Headlines takes the reader even farther beyond the "front stage" to explore a China few Westerners have seen. The contributors argue that the great gap between what specialists understand and the general public believes has led to distorted and potentially dangerous misunderstandings of the most powerful emerging player on the global stage. Seeking to bridge that gap, a group of prominent scholars, journalists, and activists challenge readers to move past the typical images of China presented by the media and to think about the common problems shared by China and the United States. In an entirely new set of essays, they explore such critical issues as environmental degradation, nationalism, unemployment, film and literature, news reporting, the Internet, sex tourism, and the costs of the economic boom to vividly portray the complexity of life in contemporary China and how surprisingly often it speaks to the American experience.

Contributions Bei Dao, Susan D. Blum, Timothy Cheek, Martin Fackler, John Gittings, Howard Goldblatt, Peter Hays Gries, Sandra Teresa Hyde, Lionel M. Jensen, Tong Lam, Sylvia Li-chun Lin, Jonathan Noble, Tim Oakes, David Ownby, Judith Shapiro, Timothy B. Weston, and Xiao Qiang

Genres: China

378 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Luci · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers some interesting insights and information on some of the lesser known aspects of different topics related to postmodern China. However, I found some of the articles to be unjustifiably biased even though one writer admits this in the beginning of the book and tries to justify it as the natural outcome from their treatment in China as journalists. A lot of the information is also not accurate to date, as all things in China tend to transform by the minute. Still, there are many revelations to be found here that are generally inaccessible in the media.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

What can I say about assigned reading? Not the sort of book I would read on my free time, but not too painful to slog through (doesn't quite deserve the word slog).