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

Jeff Wasserstrom is among the most engaging of the new generation of U.S. intellectuals who study and write about China, and this book is a good introduction to how he thinks about the world and about China. The book is clearly a collection of essays begun and, in some cases, published elsewhere, and thus it doesn't hang together in the same way that a full-length tome might, but it's still a good read, because Professor Wasserstrom writes clearly and well. Wasserstrom is interested in urban life, and shows that he loves and has an affinity for Shanghai. In addition to his interesting and trenchant comments about how urban life has changed in Shanghai, he takes a sympathetic but also critical look at Taipei and elsewhere in Taiwan, and also draws interesting analogies to urban changes happening elsewhere. Professor Wasserstrom moved from Indiana University to the University of California at Irvine in the past couple of years, and we should all expect and welcome his future scholarly work. In the meantime, he is a frequent and welcome contributor to The China Beat, which is fast becoming one of the essential blogs in English about China and things Chinese. Buy this book -- you'll learn a lot, and you won't regret having bought it!

As a lay reader who is interested in China, I found this book delightful. It is packed with fascinating observations and compelling insights not only into modern China, but such broad and disparate topics as the philosophy of travel, the cultural history of theme parks, and the semiotics of public memorials. These are topics which academics tend to surround with a wall of high seriousness and impenetrable jargon, but Wasserstrom's essays are warm, personal, vivid, and engaging. You will definitely smile when you read this book, as when Wasserstrom compares the glassed-in case that holds the embalmed body of Mao to the one that preserves Sleeping Beauty in the Disney movie. Wasserstrom is fond of the image of the palimpsest, but for me what these essays suggest is a kaleidoscope: an assortment of anecdotes, observations, theories, and facts are thrown together in a beguiling manner that magically reveals new patterns and offers unexpected insights. Wasserstrom is acutely observant of his surroundings and passionate about particulars, and one theme he turns to again and again in his wide-ranging essays is that it is a mistake to see the world being washed into a drab conformity by a tidal wave of Americanization. Globalization, from his perspective, is a complex process that runs in multiple directions and is always locally-inflected. Instead of decrying lost purity, he tries to analyze and enjoy the rich spectacle of altered meanings and odd intermixtures on display all around us. (One amusing Chinese example he cites is Mao nostalgia in the form of a cell phone ringtone.) While hardly rose-colored, Wasserstrom's outlook in these "tales for global times" is much more positive than one normally encounters, and I for one found this very refreshing.