China's Brave New World: And Other Tales for Global Times

If Chairman Mao came back to life today, what would he think of Nanjing's bookstore, the Librairie Avant-Garde, where it is easier to find primers on Michel Foucault's philosophy than copies of the Little Red Book? What does it really mean to order a latte at Starbucks in Beijing? Is it possible that Aldous Huxley wrote a novel even more useful than Orwell's 1984 for making sense of post-Tiananmen China--or post-9/11 America?

In these often playful, always enlightening "tales," Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom poses these and other questions as he journeys from 19th-century China into the future, and from Shanghai to Chicago, St. Louis, and Budapest. He argues that simplistic views of China and Americanization found in most soundbite-driven media reports serve us poorly as we try to understand China's place in the current world order--or our own.

Author: Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 05/22/2007
Pages: 240
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.79lbs
Size: 8.94h x 7.04w x 0.67d
ISBN: 9780253219084

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 06/01/2007 pg. 132

About the Author

Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine. His books include Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China: The View from Shanghai. He lives in Irvine, California.