1. Chinese Children at Play written and illustrated by Yui Shufang (Methuen, 1939)

This was the picture book that transfixed me as a child. I was entranced by these cool, neat, nifty children rolling marbles, whipping tops, kicking little feathered missiles called Chientse, and trying to beat one another with fighting crickets, where we only had conkers on strings. When I finally reached China, I was transfixed all over again. Not this time by the children (the one child policy means that you hardly ever see them or hear their voices), but by the whirlwind of creation and destruction smothering every small town or village you come to in a dense white cloud of cement dust or chemical pollution. Violent, physical, in-your-face and up-your-nose political and social change on this scale is as exhilarating as it is alarming.

2. The Chinese Children Next Door by Pearl Buck (Methuen, 1944)

My mother read me this story before I could read myself, and it became inextricably mixed in my mind with Yui’s pictures. It tells the story of six little girls who longed so hard for a baby brother that at last their wish came true. The family’s seventh child was a boy, the answer to his parents’ prayers, the pet and plaything of his big sisters. Re-reading this captivating book as an adult, I realised that it mirrored much harsher stories my mother told me about her own childhood when she, too, was the last of six unwanted daughters born to parents whose seventh child was the son they had dreamed of having all along. It was only after I started work on my own Chinese book, that I realised it was Buck who wrote the story I used to know by heart as a child.

3. Chinese Painting by James Cahill (Skira, 1960)

For 1000 years and more the Chinese painted the same few things with infinite subtlety and in inexhaustible variety: rocks, water, clouds, bamboo, plum blossom, trees, their leaves and – almost more important – the spaces between the leaves. This book was my passport to that magical world of mountains and rivers. Long afterwards, on a visit to Zhenjiang museum, I asked my Chinese companion to translate the delicate lines of calligraphy suspended in a V-shaped patch of sky between a soaring peak at the top of a tall scroll painting, and the single tiny figure of a fisherman almost invisible on his boat far below. I was intoxicated by the sense of boundless space and ambiguity projected by this disembodied, almost abstract landscape. My interpreter was a student, a pragmatic child of communist China who had clearly never looked at a painting before. “The man in the boat is dead drunk,” she read out flatly. “He’s been knocking it back hard for four days, and now he’s run out of liquor money.”

4. Madly Singing in the Mountains by Arthur Waley, edited by Ivan Morris (Allen & Unwin, 1970)

This excellent anthology gave me my first taste of Chinese poetry and its many flavours, as rich, complex and surprising as the same country’s painting or cooking. Waley’s musical translations incorporate the pure, high, heady sound of flutes and also somehow convey the suppressed belly laugh so often lurking between the lines or in the far corner of a Chinese poem or picture.

5. The Warrior Woman: Memoir of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston (Picador, 1981, originally published US 1975)

This account of growing up as a Chinese American combines the harsh raucous energy of US street life, seen from in and outside a Chinese laundry, with the violence and hardship of life in a Chinese village plagued by wild and recklessly inventive ancestral phantoms. I would rank this fabulous book with the best of Nabokov, Bellow or Roth.

6. River Town by Peter Hessler (John Murray, 2002)

Another brilliant book by a young American confronting a China beginning for the first time to open its doors to the West in the 1990s. Hessler spent two years teaching English in a nondescript small town on the Yangtze, and used it as a base from which to explore the country’s enigmatic past, inscrutable present and unpredictable future. A spellbinding account of a moment that will never come again.

7. The Fighting Angel by Pearl Buck (John Day, 1936)

This was the first of Buck’s books that I read as an adult, and I would never have heard of it if it hadn’t been for Henri Matisse who urged his children to read it, insisting at the same time that he was nothing like the man in it. The book turned out to be Buck’s fictional biography of her missionary father, who sacrificed himself, his wife and his children in a hopeless attempt to convert the entire Chinese nation to a bleak Calvinist version of Christianity. The book is a classic study of obsession, perceptive, humorous and grim. It explained much about Matisse (whose biography I was writing at the time), and made me pick Buck as my next subject.

8. Falling Leaves: The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah (Michael Joseph, 1997)

Gripping account of childhood neglect and rejection redeemed on every page by the writer’s courage, intelligence and humanity. Her family history spans the whole of the last century, a time of public turmoil, revolution, war and institutional communist brutality that echoes her private disruption. Historically, culturally and emotionally speaking, this was an education for me.

9. The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices by Xinran (Vintage, 2003)

Xinran compered China’s first ever radio phone-in programme for woman whose male-dominated culture had never permitted them to talk about themselves and their problems before. Of all the life stories currently pouring out of contemporary China, these are, for me, among the most astonishing and hard to forget.

10. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie (Vintage, 2002)

Funny, lively and startling story of two doctors’ sons exiled to a course of punitive labour in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. What saves them is an illicit passion for 19th-century European literature, which provides an escape route to a weird alien world as exotic to them as China itself has always been to me.

(CPC, Central Committee), Resolution on CPC History ’81 * …………………………………………………….. 17241.194.2575
Ahn Byung-joon, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution ………………………………………………… DS777.55.A6735
Asia Research Center, The Great Cultural Revolution ’67 ……………………………………………………………. 17241.193.405
Ba Jin, Random Thoughts ………………………………………………………………………………………………. PL2780.F4S913’84 G
Barnouin, Barbara, & Yu Changgen, Ten Years of Turbulence …………………………………………………… DS778.7.B87’93
Barnouin, Barbara, Chinese Foreign Policy During the Cultural Rev’n ………………………………………….. Kegan Paul’98
Bennett, Gordon A. and Ronald N. Montaperto, Red Guard: The Political Biography of Dai Hsiao-ai ’80……………
Beyond a Purge and a Holocaust*, Law Kam-yee, ed ………………………………………………………………………………….. ’99
Blecher, Marc and Gordon White, Micropolitics in Contemporary China: A Technical Unit…Cultural Revolution….
Bonavia, David, Verdict in Peking: Trial of Gang of Four ’84 Hist 423 BON Res…………………………………….
Chakrabarti, Sreemati, Mao, China’s Intellectuals and the Cultural Revolution ……………………………………. Sanchar’98
Chan, Anita, Children of Mao * ………………………………………………………………………………………….. HQ799.C5C47 ’85
Chang, Y.C., Factional and Coalitional Politics in China: The Cultural Revolution and its Aftermath . HX388.5.C48
Ch’en Jo-hsi, The Execution of Mayor Yin and Other Stories From the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution ………..
China in Ferment: Perspectives on CR ’71, Richard Baum, ed ……………………………………………………… 17241.194.154
China: The Impact of Revolution, Colin Mackerras, ed ……………………………………………………………. DS777.55.C4486
Collier, John & Elsie, China’s Socialist Revolution ’73 ………………………………………………………………. 17241.194.2573
Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars, China! Inside the PR …………………………………………………………………………
Daubier, Jean, A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution ……………………………………………………………………………..
Dittmer, Lowell and Chen Ruoxi, Ethics and Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution …………………………………….
Dittmer, Lowell, Liu Shao-Ch’i and the Chinese Cultural Revolution * …………………………………….. 17241.19.594.302
Edison, Victoria and James Edison, Cultural Revolution: Posters and Memorabilia ……………………………… Schifer’06
Esmein, Jean, The Chinese Cultural Revolution……………………………………………………………………… 17241.194.331’73
Feng Jicai, Voices From the Whirlwind: An Oral History of CR ……………………………………………… DS778.7.F462513
Forster, Keith, Rebellion & Factionalism, Zhejiang’66-76 ……………………………………………………. DS793.C286F67’90
Ha Jin, The Bridegroom (short stories, some CR; see “Literature” section too) ………………………………………….. Pant’00
Han Dongping, The Unknown Cultural Revolution…[positive] Ed. Reforms …………………………………………………………
Han Suyin, The Phoenix Harvest ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Han Suyin, Wind in the Tower: Chinese Revolution, ’49-75 …………………………………………………….. DS777.55.H2975
Han, Dongping, The Unknown Cultural Revolution: Educational Reforms…Rural Development………….Garland’00
Heilmann, Sebastian, Turning Away from Cultural Revolution: Political Grassroots in the Mid-70s .. StockholmU’96
Huang Shaorong, To Rebel is Justified: Rhetorical Study of China’s CR ………………………………………………….. UPA’96 12 Jin Qiu, The Culture of Power: The Lin Biao Incident in the Cultural Revolution …………………………………….. Stanf’99
Joseph, William, The Critique of Ultra-Leftism, 1958-81 ………………………………………………………….. DS777.75.J64’85
Karnow, Stanley, Mao and China …………………………………………………………………………………………….. 17241.194.513
Kraus, Richard, Class Conflict in Chinese Socialism ……………………………………………………………. HN740.Z9S63 F&G
Kwong, Julia, The Cultural Revolution in China’s Schools …………………………………………………….. LA1131.82.K93’88
Lee Hong Yung, A Research Guide to Red Guard Publications ………………………………………………………………………….
Lee Hong Yung, The Politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution * ……………………………………………….. DS777.55.L39
Leys, Simon, Broken Images: Essays on Culture & Politics …………………………………………………….. DS777.55.R89’79
Leys, Simon, The Burning Forest: Essays on Culture & Politics. …………………………………………………… Hist 423 Res.
Leys, Simon, The Chairman’s New Clothes: Mao & the CR …………………………………………………… DS778.7.L4913’81
Lifton, Robert J., Revolutionary Immortality: Mao & Revolu’n …………………………………………… 17241.194.585 F&W
Liu Guokai (w/A. Chan), A Brief Analysis of the Cultural Rev. …………………………………………………………………………..
Lou, Sheldon, Sparrows, Bedbugs, and Body Shadows: A Memoir ……………………………………………………… Hawaii’05
Lu Xing, Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution: The Impact on Chinese Thought, Culture, and Communication
Lubell, Pamela, The Chinese Communist Party and the Cultural Revolution: The Case of the Sixty-One Renegades ..
Ma Jisen, The Cultural Revolution in the Foreign Ministry of China …………………………………………………………………..
MacFarquhar, Roderick, The Origins of the CR, Vols. 1 & 2 & 3 ** ………………………………………….DS777.55.M2224
MacFarquhar, Roderick and Michael Schoenhals, Mao’s Last Revolution* ……………………………………………… HUP’06
Mehnert, Klaus, China Returns …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 1722.628’72.3
Myrdal, Jan & Gun Kessle, China: The Revolution Continued ’71 ………………………………………………… 17241.194.668
Nee, Victor, and Don Layman, Cultural Revolution at Peking University …………………………………………………………….
Nee, Victor, and James Peck, China’s Uninterrupted Revolution …………………………………………….. DS777.55.C44924
New Perspectives on the CR *, Wm. Joseph+, ed ………………………………………………………………………………………… ’91
Perry, Elizabeth, & Li Xun, Proletarian Power: Shanghai in the CR * …………………………………………….. Westview’96
Picturing Power in the PRC: Posters of Cultural Revolution, Evans, Harriet+, ed. ……………………………………. Row’99
Robinson, Joan, The Cultural Revolution in China ’69 ………………………………………………………………… 17241.194.777
Rosen, Stanley, Red Guard Factionalism…in Guangzhou (Canton) ’82 ** ………………………………………. DS778.7.R67
Schoenhals, Michael, CCP Central Documents from CR…Incomplete ……………………………………………………………. ’93
Schoenhals, Michael, China’s CR…Not a Dinner Party ………………………………………………………………………. Sharpe’96
Schrift, Melissa, Biography of a Chairman Mao Badge:The Creation&Mass Consumption…Cult…..…….Rutgers’01
Shalom, Stephen Rosskamm, Deaths in China Due to Communism: Propaganda vs. Reality …. DS777.55.S463’84 G
Shapiro, Judith, Mao’s War against Nature:Politics&the Environment in Revolutionary China ………… Cambridge’01
Sidel, Ruth, Families of Fengsheng ’74 ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 17247.8545
Solomon, Richard, A Revolution is Not a Dinner Party ………………………………………………………………. DS777.55.S617
Solomon, Richard, Mao’s Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture ………………………………………….. 75766.865.02
Stubborn Weeds: Literature after the CR ’83, Perry Link, ed …………………………………………………….. PL2658.E1S78 G
Teiwes, Frederick+, Tragedy of Lin Biao: Riding the Tiger in CR ……………………………………………………….. Hawaii’96
The Cultural Revolution in China, Thomas Robinson, ed …………………………………………………………….. 17241.194.778
The Cultural Revolution: A Bibliography 1966-96, Eugene Wu+, ed ………………………………………………….. HarvYC’98
Thurston, Anne F., Enemies of the People * …………………………………………………………………………….. DS778.7.T46’87
Urban, George, Miracles of Chmn. Mao: Devotional Literature ………………………………………………. 17241.19.616.923
Walder, Andrew, Chang Ch’un-ch’iao & Shanghai’s January Revolut’n …………………………………….. DS796.S257W34
Wang, James C.F., The Cultural Revolution in China: An Annotated Bibliography * ……………………………………………
We the Chinese: Voices ’71, Neale & Deidre Hunter, ed ……………………………………………………………… 17241.194.487
Wedeman, Andrew, The East Wind Subsides: Foreign Policy and Cultural Revolution ………………………………………..
White, Lynn, Policies of Chaos: The Organizational Causes of Violence in China’s Cultural Revolution ……………….
Yan Jiaqi & Gao Gao, Turbulent Decade: History of the CR ………………………………………………………………. Hawaii’96
Yang Lan, Chinese Fiction of the Cultural Revolution ……………………………………………………………………….. HKUP’98
Yao Ming-le, The Conspiracy and Murder of Mao’s Heir (Lin) ’83 ………………………………………….. DS778.L4725Y36
Zang, Xiaowei, Children of the Cultural Revolution:Family Life Political Behavior in Mao’s China…..Westview’00
CULTURAL REVOLUTION MEMOIRS/AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
Barcata, Louis, China in the Throes of the CR: Eyewitness ……………………………………………………… 17241.193.405’68
Chang Jung, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China ** ……………………………………………………………………………… ’92
Chen Xuezhao, Surviving the Storm: A Memoir ’91 (not just CR) ……………………………………….. PL2840.H784Z47713
Chen, Jack, Inside the Cultural Revolution ’75 ………………………………………………………………………… DS777.55.C3958
Cheng Nien, Life and Death in Shanghai ………………………………………………………………………………. DS778.7.C445 ’87
China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution:Master…Counternarratives, Woei Lien Chong, ed …….. Rowman’02
Feng, Jicai, Ten Years of Madness: Oral Histories …………………………………………………………………………………… SF’96
Fokkema, D.W., Report From Peking: Observations…Western Diplomat …………………………………….. 17241.194.353
Galston, Arthur, w/ Jean Savage, Daily Life in People’s China …………………………………………………………….. 1722.376
Gao Yuan, Born Red: Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution ………………………………………………………… DS778.G36’87
Hinton, William, Hundred Day War: CR at Tsinghua Univ. ’72 ……………………………………………….. 17241.194.464.02 13 Hunter, Neale, Shanghai Journal: Eyewitness Account of the CR …………………………………………………… 1725.852.493
Jiang Yarong+, Mao’s Children in New China: Voices from Red Guard Generation ………………………………….. Rout’00
Lai Ying, The Thirty-Sixth Way …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Li Zhengsheng, Red-Color News Soldier: A Chinese Photographer’s Odyssey through the Cultural Revolution ………
Liang Heng & Judith Shapiro (P’75), Son of the Revolution ……………………………………………………. DS778.L4534.A37
Lin Jing, The Red Guard’s Path to Violence …………………………………………………………………………………….. Praeger’91
Ling, Ken, Revenge of Heaven: Journal of a Young Chinese ’72 ………………………………………………….. 17421.194.589
Long, Kelly Ann, Helen Foster Snow: An American Woman in Reovlutionary China …………………………. Colorado’06
Lo Fulang, Morning Breeze: Memoirs of a Red Guard Woman ………………………………………………..DS778.7.L6 F&W
Luo Zi-ping, A Generation Lost ……………………………………………………………………………………………… DS778.7.L86’90
Ma Bo, Blood Red Sunset: A Memoir ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. Viking’95
Milton, David and Nancy, The Wind Will Not Subside ………………………………………………………….. DS777.55.M536’75
Niu-Niu, No Tears for Mao ……………………………………………………………………………………………AcademyPublishers’95
Pan, Stephen & R. de Jaegher, Peking’s Red Guards ……………………………………………………………………. 17241.194’69
Qian Gang, The Great China Earthquake (& 1976 politics) …………………………………………………………………………. ’89
Ross, James, Caught in a Tornado: A Chinese American Woman ………………………………………………………… Boston’94
Shen Fan, Gang of One: Memoirs of a Red Guard …………………………………………………………………………………………..
Thurston, Anne [on soldier Ni Yuxian], A Chinese Odyssey …………………………………………………… DS778.N53T48’91
Wu Ningkun, A Single Tear ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. NY, ’93
Yang Xiguang, Captive Spirits: Prisoners of the Cultural Revolution ……………………………………………………… OUP’97
Ye Ting-Xing, Leaf in a Bitter Wind …………………………………………………………………………………………… Doubleday’97
Yue Daiyun (w/ Carolyn Wakeman), To the Storm * …………………………………………………. LA2383.C52Y849’85 F&W
Zhang Zhenhua, Red Flower of China …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Brahm, Laurence J., China’s Century: The Awakening of the Next Economic Powerhouse ………………………. Wiley’01
Chai, Joseph, China: Transition to a Market Economy ………………………………………………………………………….. OUP’97
Chan, Anita+, Transforming Asian Socialism: China and Vietnam Compared ……………………………………. Rowman’99
Chang, Maria Hsia, The Labors of Sisyphus: The Ec Dev’t of Communist China ………………………………………….. NJ’98
Chen, Jian, Globalization, Competition, and Growth in China ……………………………………………………….. Routledge’06
Chao Yang Peng, Challenges to Chinese Energy Security ………………………………………………………………… Adelaide’96
Chen Jinhua, Report on China’s Natl Economic & Social Devt for 1996 ……………………………………….. ChiPlanning’96
Cheng, Siwei, Studies on Economic Reforms&Development in China …………………………………………………….. OUP’01
Chi Fulin, Pressing Tasks of Chinese Economic Transition ………………………………………………………………….. BjFLP’96 56 Chiu, Beck, Reforming China’s State-Owned Enterprises and Banks …………………………………………………….. Elgar’06
China and India: Economic Performance…Mid-1990s, Sam Dzever and J. Jaussaud, ed ……………………………. StM’99
China Economic Systems Reform Yearbook ’95 …………………………………………………………………………………………Bj’96
China Enters WTO:Pursuing Symbiosis with the Global Economy, Ippei Yamazawa&Ken-ichi Imai, eds ………….. ’01
China’s Challenges in the Twenty-first Century, Cheng, Joseph Y. S., ed. …………………………………………………………..
China’s Economic Security, Werner Draguhn & Bob Ash, ed ………………………………………………………………. StMar’99
China’s Roadmap as Seen in the 15th P. Congress, Yoshifumi Nakai, ed. …………………………………… InstDevEcons’98
China’s Transitional Economy, Andrew Walder, ed ……………………………………………………………………………… OUP’96
Chinese Business Enterprise, Ampalavanar Brown, ed…………………………………………………………………… Routledge’96
Chow, Gregory C., China’s Economic Transformation ………………………………………………………………….. Blackwell’02
Contemporary Developments & Issues in China’s Econ Transition, C. Harvie, ed. ……………………………………. StM’00
Demurger, Sylvie, Economic Opening & Growth in China …………………………………………………………………. OECD’00
Dev’t of China’s Nongovernmental, Privately Operated Economy, Gao SQ, ed …………………………………………. FLP’96
Fernandez, Juan, China’s State-Owned Enterprise Reforms: An Industrial and CEO Approach …………. Routledge’07
Financial Reform in China:Bridging the Gap between Plan and Market, Henk van Gemert, ed ………………. Shaker’01
From Central Plan to Market, Pradumna Rana, ed ……………………………………………………………………………….. OUP’96
Gabriel, Satyananda, Chinese Capitalism and the Modernist Vision ……………………………………………….. Routledge’06
Gallagher, Kelly Sims, Chian Shifts Gears: Automakers, Oil. Pollution, and Development ……………………….. MIT’06
Garnaut, Ross+, China: Is Rapid Growth Sustainable? …………………………………………………………………………. APP’04
Garnaut, Ross+, China’s Ownership Transformation …………………………………………………………………. World Bank’05
Gore, Lance, Market Communism: Institutions of China’s Post-Mao Hyper-Growth …………………………………. OUP’98
Green, Stephen and Guy S. Liu, Exit the Dragon? Privatization and State Control in China ………………………………….
Guthrie, Doug, Dragon in a Three-Piece Suit ……………………………………………………………………………………….. PUP’99
Ikels, Charlotte, The Return of the God of Wealth: Transition of a Market Econ ……………………………………….. SUP’96
IMF, People’s Republic of China: Statistical Tables and Charts ……………………………………………………………….. DC’95
Impact of China’s Ec Reforms on Land, Property, Construction, Chen, Jean+, ed. ……………………………….. Ashgate’99
Kluver, Alan, Legitimating Chinese Economic Reforms: Myth & Orthodoxy ………………………………………. SUNYP’96
Lardy, Nicholas, China’s Unfinished Economic Revolution …………………………………………………………….. Brookings98
Lees, Francis, A China Superpower: Requisites for High Growth ……………………………………………………… StMartin’97
Li, Hua-yu, Mao and the Economic Stalinization of China, 1948-1953 …………………………………………….. Rowman’06
Li Jingwen, The Chinese Economy into the 21st Century:Forecasts & Policies …………………… ForeignLanguagesP’00
Li Xiaoming, Disequilibria, Economic Reforms and Economic Policies …………………………………………….. Avebury’95
Liew, Leong, China’s Economy in Transition: Plan to Market ……………………………………………………………….. Elgar’97
Lin George C.S., Red Capitalism in South China: Growth and Development…Delta ………………………………… UBC’97
Lin, Justin, The China Miracle: Development Strategy ………………………………………………………………………. CUHK’96
Lin, Yi-min, Between Politics and Markets:Firms…Post-Mao China …………………………………………….. Cambridge’01
Liu Guoguang+, PRC Economics Blue Book ………………………………………………………………………………… UHKCAS’98
Lu Ding, State Intervention & Business in China …………………………………………………………………………………. Elgar’97
Lu, Yuan, Management Decision-Making in Chinese Enterprises ……………………………………………………….. Martin’96
Ma Jun, Intergovernmental Relations & Econ Mng’mnt in China ……………………………………………………… StMartin’97
Ma Jun, The Chinese Economy in the 1990s …………………………………………………………………………………… StMartin’00
Market Economies & Political Change…China and Mexico, Lindau, Juan …………………………………………. Rowman’98
Mastel, Greg, The Rise of the Chinese Economy ………………………………………………………………………………… Sharpe’97
Naughton, Barry, Growing Out of the Plan …………………………………………………………………………………………. Camb’98
Pearson, Margaret, China’s New Business Elite…Political Consequences …………………………………………………… UC’97
Pei Xiaolin, The Institutional Root of China’s Rural Industry …Gradual Reform………………………………………. Lund’98
Property Rights and Economic Reform in China, Oi, Jean+, ed. …………………………………………………………….. Stanf’99
Provincial Strategies of Economic Reform, Peter Cheung, ed ……………………………………………………………… Sharpe’98
Public Sector Reform in Hong Kong, Jane C.Y. Lee, ed ……………………………………………………………………… CUHK’95
Rawski, Thomas G., China’s Economy after Fifty Years: Retrospect and Prospect …………………………………… UPitt’99
Rawski, Thomas G., The Political Economy of China’s Declining Growth ………………………………………………. UPitt’99
Reforming China’s State-Owned Enterprises, Gao SQ, ed ………………………………………………………………………. FLP’97
Ren, Ruoen, China’s Economic Performance ……………………………………………………………………………………. OECD’97
Several Issues Arising in the Retracking of the Chinese Economy, Gao SQ, ed …………………………………………. FLP’97
Shen, Raphael, China’s Econ Reform: Experiment in Pragmatic Socialism …………………………………………….. Praeg’00
Steinfeld, Edward, Forging Reform in China: Fate of State-Owned Industry * ……………………………………….. Camb’98
The Chinese Economy Under Deng, Robert Ash, ed. …………………………………………………………………………….. OUP’96
The Chinese Economy under Transition, Sarah Cook, ed. ………………………………………………………………… StMartin’00
The Market in Chinese Social Policy, Linda Wong&Norman Flynn, eds ……………………………………………. Palgrave’01
The New Entrepreneurs…Business Development…China, Victoria Bonnell&Thomas Gold, eds…….……..Sharpe’02
The Rise of China, Michael Brown,+, eds ……………………………………………………………………………………………. MIT’00
Theory and Reality of Transition to a Market Economy, Gao Shangquan, ed …………………………………………….. FLP’96 57 Thum, Eric, Changing Lanes in China ………………………………………………………………………………………………… CUP’05
Tong Yanqi, Transitions from State Socialism: Ec & Pol Change in Hungary & China ………………………. Rowman’97
Tseng, Wanda, India’s and China’s Recent Experience with Reform and Growth ……………………………. Macmillan’05
UNDP, China Human Development Report, 1999: Transition and the State …………………………………………………… ’99
US Joint Economic Committee, China’s Economic Future ………………………………………………………………….. Sharpe’97
Wang Shaoguang, Hu Angang, Political Economy of Uneven Development ………………………………………….. Sharpe’99
Waters, Harry, Chinese Economic Development Strategies for the 21st C …………………………………………… Quorum’97
Weil, Robert, Red Cat, White Cat: Contradictions of Market Socialism ……………………………………….. MonthlyRev’96
World Bank, China: Long-Term Development Issues and Options* ……………………………………………………………………
World Bank, China: Socialist Economic Development, 2 vols. …………………………………………………………………………..
World Bank, China: Weathering the Storm and Learning the Lessons ……………………………………………………………. ’99
World Bank, China’s Management of Enterprise Assets: State as Shareholder …………………………………………… DC’97
World Bank, Fostering Competition in China’s Power Markets ………………………………………………………………. DC’01
Xia Ming, The Dual Developmental State: Dev Strategy & Inst Arrangements ……………………………………. Ashgate’00
Yusuf, Shahid, China’s Development Priorities ………………………………………………………………………… World Bank’06

Colloquial Chinese P C T’ung and D E Pollard (Routledge 1982)

Zheng Rui. Hanyu yuedu sucheng (jichu pian) (Speedy Reading Course for Chinese (elementary level)). Beijing: Beijing Languages and Cultures University Press, 2006.

Essential Readings:

• Hu Yushu 胡裕树(ed.): Xiandai Hanyu 现代汉语(Modern Chinese). Shanghai: Shanghai Jiaoyu Chubanshe, (1995) 2001

Additional Readings:

• Bradford, Richard: Stylistics. London: Routledge, 1997
• Edward, Gunn: Rewriting Chinese – Style and Innovation in Twentieth-Century Chinese
• Prose. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1991
• Freeman, Donald C. (ed.): Linguistics and Literary Style. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1970
• Haynes, John: Introducing Stylistics. London: Unwin Hyman, 1989
• Hockx, Michel: The Question of Style – Literary Societies and Literary Journals in Modern China, 1911–1937. Leiden: Brill, 2003
• Turner, G.W.: Stylistics. Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd.
• Wu Jicai 吴积才 & Cheng Jiashu 程家枢（ed.）: Xiandai Hanyu 现代汉语. Yunnan: Renmin Chubanshe, 1981
• Hsia, C.T.: A History of Modern Chinese Fiction. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961
• Zhongguo Xiuci Xuehui 中国修辞学会 (ed.): Xiucixue Lunwenji 修辞学论文集. Fuzhou: Fujian Renmin Chubanshe, 1983

* Bol, Peter K.: “This Culture of Ours”: Intellectual Transitions in T’ang and Sung China. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1992
* Cheng, Anne: Histoire de la Pensée Chinoise. Paris: Seuil, 1997
* Clunas, Craig: Fruitful Sites: Garden Culture in Ming Dynasty China. London: Reaktion Books, 1996
* Fung Yu-Lan, transl. by Derk Bodde: A history of Chinese philosophy. 2 vols.; Princeton: Princeton UP, 1952
* Graham, Angus C.: Poems of the Late T’ang. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965
* Graham, Angus C.: Disputers of the Tao. Philosophical Argumentation in Ancient China. La Salle: Open Court, 1989
* Hsiao Kung-chuan, transl. by F.W. Mote: A History of Chinese Political Thought. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1979
* Li, Chu-Tsing & James C. Y. Watt: The Chinese Scholar’s Studio: Artistic Life in the Late Ming Period. New York: Thames and Hudson, The Asia Society Galleries, 1987
* Lin Shuen-fu & Stephen Owen: The Vitality of the Lyric Voice. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1986
* Liu, James J. Y.: The Art of Chinese Poetry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962
* Loewe, Michael & Edward L. Shaughnessy (eds.): The Cambridge History of Ancient China. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999
* Mair, Victor H.: The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia UP, 1994
* Mair, Victor H.: The Columbia History of Chinese Literature. New York: Columbia UP, 2002
* Murck, Alfreda & Wen C. Fong: Words and Images: Chinese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Princeton: Princeton UP, 1991
* Owen, Stephen: The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang. New Haven: Yale UP, 1981
* Owen, Stephen: An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1996
* Sulleyblank, Edwin G.: Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1995
* Sima Qian: Shiji . 10 vols., Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, [1959] 1982
* Schwartz, Benjamin I.: The World of Thought in Ancient China. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1985
* Yang Bojun : Mengzi Yizhu . 2 vols.; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, [1960] 1988

Essential research tools include:

* Cihai . 3 vols. + 1 vol. addenda; Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju / Shanghai Cishu chubanshe, 1980
* Ciyuan . 4 vols.; Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1980
* Gu, Charles Wei-hsun & Wing-tsit Chan: Guide to Chinese Philosophy. Boston, Mass.: G.K. Hall, 1978
* Gu Hanyu Changyongzi Zidian Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1979
* Gu Hanyu Xuci Yongfa Cidian . Xi’an: Shaanxi Renmin chubanshe, 1998 (or equivalent)
* Gudai Hanyu Cidian . Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1998
* Huang Kaiguo et al. (main eds.): Zhuzi Baijia Da Cidian . Chengdu: Sichuan Renmin chubanshe, 1999
* Hucker, Charles O.: A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1985
* Lin Qingzhang (main ed.): Jingxue Yanjiu Lunzhu Mulu , 1912-1987 . 2 vols.; Taibei: Hanxue Yanjiu Zhongxin, 1989
* Loewe, Michael: Early Chinese Texts. A Bibliographical Guide. Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and The Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1993
* Luo Zhufeng : Hanyu Da Cidian .12 vols.; Shanghai: Hanyu da cidian chubanshe, [1990] 1994
* Unger, Ulrich: Grundbegriffe der altchinesischen Philosophie. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2000
* Wang Li : Hanyu Shilüxue . Hong Kong: Zhonghua shuju, 1957, 1973
* Wang Li : Gudai Hanyu [xiudingben] . 4 vols.; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, [1981] 1995
* Wang Li (main ed.): Wang Li Gu Hanyu Zidian Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2000
* Wei Zhengtong (main ed.): Zhongguo Zhexue Cidian Daquan

• Economy, Elisabeth. The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China’s Future. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004.
• Elvin, Mark. The Retreat of the Elephants: an Environmental History of China. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004.
• Elvin, Mark and Liu Ts’ui-jung, eds. Sediments of Time: Environment and Society in Chinese History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
• He, Baochuan. China on the Edge: The Crisis of Ecology and Development. San Francisco: China Books and Periodicals, 1991.
• Lee, James Z. and WANG Feng. One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700-2000. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999.
• Marks, Robert B. Tigers, Rice, Silk, and Silt: Environment and Economy in Late Imperial South China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
• Shapiro, Judith. Mao’s War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
• Smil, Vaclav. The Bad Earth: Environmental Degradation in China. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1984.
• Smil, Vaclav. China’s Past, China’s Future: Energy, Food, Environment. New York, London: Routledge&Curzon, 2004 (Critical Asian Scholarship).

• Paul A. Cohen, China unbound: Evolving perspectives on the Chinese past, New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.
• Nicola Di Cosmo (intro., notes, transl. of Dzengšeo’s), The diary of a Manchu soldier in seventeenth-century China : “My service in the army”, London: Routledge, 2006.
• Idem and Dalizhabu Bao, Manchu-Mongol relations on the eve of the Qing Conquest: a documentary history, Leiden: Brill, 2003.
• Pamela Kyle Crossley, Orphan warriors: Three Manchu generations and the end of the Qing world, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.
• Idem, The Manchus, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1997.
  Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing history from the nation: Questioning narratives of modern China, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
• Patricia Buckley Ebrey, “Manchus and Imperialism: the Qing Dynasty 1644-1900,” ch.9 in The Cambridge Illustrated History of China, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
• Mark Elliott, “Manchu figurations of historical process in the early seventeenth century”, in: Lynn A. Struve (ed.), Time, temporality, and imperial transition: East Asia from Ming to Qing, Honolulu: Association for Asian Studies / University of
  Hawai’i Press, 2005.
• Idem, The Manchu way: The eight banners and ethnic identity in late imperial China, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.
• Johan Elverskog, Our great Qing: The Mongols, Buddhism and the state in late imperial China, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006.
• James Hevia, Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793, Durham: Duke University Press, 1995.
• Franz Michael, The origin of Manchu rule in China: Frontier and bureaucracy as interacting forces in the Chinese Empire, New York: Octagon, (1942) 1972.
• Susan Naquin & Evelyn S. Rawski, Chinese society in the eighteenth century, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
• Robert B. Oxnam, Ruling from horseback: Manchu politics in the Oboi regency 1661- 1669, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.
• Tatiana A. Pang and Giovanni Stary, New light on Manchu historiography and literature: The discovery of three documents in old Manchu script, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998.
• Alessandra Pozzi, Juha Antero Janhunen and Michael Weiers (eds), Tumen jalafun jecen aku: Manchu studies in honour of Giovanni Stary, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006.
• Edward J. M. Rhoads, Manchus & Han: Ethnic relations and political power in late Qing and early republican China, 1861-1928, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000.
• Giovanni Stary et alii, On the tracks of Manchu culture, 1644-1994: 350 years after the conquest of Peking, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1995.
• Jonathan Unger (ed.), Using the past to serve the present: Historiography and politics in contemporary China, Armonk/N.Y: M.E. Sharpe, 1993.
• Frederick Wakeman, The great enterprise: the Manchu reconstruction of imperial order in seventeenth-century China, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
• Zarrow, Peter, “Historical Trauma: Anti-Manchuism and Memories of Atrocity in Late Qing China [Yangzhou shiri ji (Account of Ten Days in Yangzhou)],” History and Memory 16.2 (Autumn-Winter 2004), pp. 67-107.

General

For those who have been offered places to read Chinese Studies at Cambridge, the short period between leaving school and coming into residence offers a valuable window of opportunity to do some effective preparatory work. This page is intended to provide guidance on the best ways to use this interlude to prepare for the Cambridge course.

Since learning to speak, read and write Chinese is one of the main components of the course, it would seem natural to want to make a start on that. However, knowledge of Chinese is not required for students starting the course as we teach Chinese to first-year students from scratch. While it may be true that the very few who come to Cambridge with some knowledge of Chinese are initially at a slight advantage, the Cambridge Chinese course is very intensive and those who don’t have knowledge of Chinese at the start can catch up with and even surpass those who do.

For those who would like to make a start of learning the language prior to coming to Cambridge, it is advised to read the following sections in the Oxford Beginner’s Chinese Dictionary (ISBN:0-19-929853):

Basic rules of writing Chinese characters; Learning and lifestyle kit; Dictionary know-how; The Chinese words and phrases you must know; Numbers; Phrasefinder; Dates for your diary; Quick reference guide to life and culture; Social survival guide.

The advice of the teaching staff in Chinese at Cambridge is, however, not to try to start tackling the language but, rather, to do some exploratory reading about China and the Chinese tradition. There should be two aims behind such reading. The first should be to stake out the basic facts about China and Chinese history, to acquire a preliminary orientation on China and the East Asian tradition. To do this in advance of coming to Cambridge will make it easier to assimilate the enormous amounts of information with which you will be presented. It will also make it easier to continue to see the wood for the trees, to keep the larger questions about China in mind during the demanding process of learning the language.

The second aim should be to clarify the nature of one’s own interest in Chinese Studies and to develop it. If at times during the course it seems that the sheer hard work and frustration involved in learning Chinese may kill your interest in the subject, it is as well to realise early on that there are many who have found rewards of the highest quality in the Chinese tradition.

The titles listed, therefore, have been chosen with these two aims in mind. There are one or two general works which will provide essential basic orientation on the Chinese tradition, and there are more highly focused studies by recognised experts, included to provide for specific interests. Most if not all the books listed should be obtainable from local libraries, if necessary on special request.

History

In the first year you will be following a course on East Asian history covering Japan, China and Korea. To prepare for this you should read the following before coming up:

• Hane, M., Premodern Japan (Westview Press) or
  Totman, G., Japan before Perry (Univ. of California Press)
• Hunter, J., The Emergence of Modern Japan(Longman) or
  Barnhart, M., Japan and the World Since 1868 (Edward Arnold)
• Hansen, V., The Open Empire: A History of China to 1600 (Norton) or
  Ebrey, P., The Cambridge Illustrated History of China (Cambridge UP)

Strongly Recommended

Adler, Joseph. Chinese Religions. London: Routledge, 2002.
A concise introduction to the history of religion in China and its ramifications in China today.

Cahill, James. Chinese Painting (Lausanne: Skira, 1960)
An excellent introduction to the major stylistic developments of Chinese painting from ca. 800 to 1800. Written thirty years ago in fluent prose, it remains unrivalled in its ability to stimulate interest in and understanding of this grand tradition.

Chang, Jung. Wild Swans: three daughters of China (London: Flamingo, 1991).
The compelling account of three generations of women in a family in twentieth century China, this is a highly readable introduction to the turbulent changes that form the background to the China of today.

Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Gernet, Jacques. Daily life in China: on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250-1276 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1962).
A richly evocative account of Chinese urban culture in the thirteenth century, it serves as a highly informative and enjoyable introduction to many features of Chinese society and thought.

Graham, A. C., Poems of the Late T’ang (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1977, reprinted).
A masterly translation of complex poems from the mid-eighth to the early tenth century, plus a sensitive introduction to the place of these famous poems in the overall development of Chinese poetic traditions.

Han Lifeng, Wu Emma Lejun, Cai Hua,. Insider China, (Lexus Ltd., 2009; ISBN 1-904737 – 17 –X)
A truly fascinating portrayal of Chinese life and culture. Here you have the real insider’s knowledge of China and things Chinese, a vast range both ancient and modern. This book offers a window on the knowledge of Chinese culture, history, personalities, events, beliefs and customs that Chinese people have simply because they are Chinese.

Huang, Ray. 1587, a year of no significance; the Ming dynasty in decline(London : Yale University Press, 1981).
Through a series of perceptive biographies the author unravels for the Western reader many of the more perplexing features of the Chinese scene. No other account of traditional Chinese government captures the feel of political life in early modern China with such poignant authenticity.

Needham, Joseph. The grand titration; science and society in East and West (London : George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1969).
Dr Needham is the pioneer of the study of the history of science and technology in China and the founder of the Needham Research Institute at Cambridge. This volume of his essays contains many of the ideas that inspire his world-famous multi-volume Science and Civilization in China, published by Cambridge University Press.

Norman, Jerry. Chinese (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
A thorough and concise account of the Chinese language, its history and modern dialects and of the script and its history.

Spence, Jonathan. The search for modern China (London : W W Norton and Co, 1991.)
An overview of Chinese history, which effectively presents the grand drama of the past few centuries of political and cultural change in China.

Hansen, Valerie. The Open Empire: A History of China to 1600 (New York: Norton, 2000).

Hawkes, David, translator. The Story of the Stone; a Chinese novel by Cao Xueqin (Harmondsworth, Middlesex : Penguin Books, 1973).
Also known as The Dream of the Red Chamber, this eighteenth century masterpiece of Chinese fiction tells of the rise and fall of a large upper-class family. Its rich detail and psychological realism combine to fascinate the reader with the complexity of late imperial life. It is essential, and enjoyable, reading for any student of China.

Ko, Dorothy. Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth Century China (California: Stanford University Press, 1994).

Kuhn, Philip. Soulstealers; the Chinese sorcery scare of 1768 (London : Harvard University Press, 1990).
A highly insightful portrayal of Chinese social and political life in the eighteenth century. Novel in its focus on popular religious obsessions, it makes a significant watershed in Western writing about Chinese social history.

Lopez, Donald S. The Story of Buddhism: A Concise Guide to Its History and Teachings. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2001.
Introduction to Buddhism that pays adequate attention to its developments across East Asia.

Chan, A., Madsen, R. and Unger, J. Chen Village under Mao and Deng (London : University of California Press, 1992).
A village level account of the dramatic political changes in China during the first three decades of Communist rule, it neatly captures the impact of revolution on individuals and their families.

Schipper, Kristofer. The Taoist Body. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
Introduction to Daoism from one of the doyens of the field.

Schram, Stuart. Mao Tse-tung (Harmondsworth, Middlesex : Penguin Books, 1970).
A compelling biography of the most influential figure of twentieth century China as well as an informative account of its turbulent history.

Shapiro, Judith. Mao’s War against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China. Cambridge University Press 2001.

Spence, Jonathan. The Death of Woman Wang (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1980).
A re-creation, part historical and part fictional of the living conditions in a poor part of China in the late seventeenth century, this short work presents a compelling account of the problems of being poor and female in traditional China.

Wolf, Margery. The house of Lim; a study of a Chinese farm family (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1968).
A good introduction to the dynamics of Chinese family relations. As enjoyable as it is instructive.

Yu, Anthony. State and Religion in China: Historical and Textual Perspectives. Chicago: Open Court, 2005.
Discusses the complex relations between state and religion throughout Chinese history from a Confucian, Buddhist and Daoist angle.

Yuan, B. and Church, S.K. Oxford Beginner’s Chinese Dictionary. Oxford University Press 2006