Books on China:
Barlow, Tani E., Gary J. Bjorge, eds. I myself am a woman : selected writings of Ding
Ling. Introduction by Tani E. Barlow. Boston : Beacon Press, c1989.
This book is a collection of the famous woman novelist Ding Ling whose first
successful story was “Miss Sophie’s Diary,” which is included in this collection.
Barrett, David, and Larry Shyu. Chinese Collaboration with Japan, 1932-1945: the
Limits of Accommodation. Stanford University Press, 2001.
Comprehensive treatment of Sino-Japanese collaboration (1937-45) at the level of both state
and society.
Bays, Daniel. Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present.
Stanford University Press, 1996.
A rich view of one of China’s smallest minorities, the Christians.
Biggerstaff, Knight. Nanking Letters. Cornell University Press, 1979, 1999.
Written between Apr. and Aug.1949, a first hand account of Nanking before, during and
immediately after the Communist takeover.
Brownell, Susan, Jeffrey Wasserstrom, eds. Chinese Femininities, Chinese
Masculinities, A Reader. University of California Press, 2002.
An assembly of paired essays on matching male and female gender issues.
Brook, Timothy, and Bob Wakabayashi, eds. Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and
Japan, 1839-1952. University of California Press, 2000.
It integrates the research of sixteen scholars to show that opium trade was not purely a
British operation but involved Chinese merchants, state agents, and Japanese imperialists as
well.
Buruma, Ian. Bad Elements, Chinese Rebels from Los Angeles to Beijing. Random
House (Vintage), 2002.
Buruma takes the reader with him on a deeply personal quest: why is it that, in the face of
overwhelming state power, some Chinese consistently refuse to live in the Lie? What does
their cussedness tell us about the meaning of being Chinese? And can the roots of their
individual acts of courage be traced either to their religious faith, or their belief in science?
Can, Xue. (contemporary, post 1949 novel) The Hut on the Mountain," and "Dialogues
in Paradise."
Chang, Natasha Peng-Mei. Bound Feet and Western Dress. New York: Anchor
Books, 1996.
A biography of Zhang Youyi, the author’s aunt and wife of the famous Chinese poet Xu
Zhimo, on how she survived divorce, attended school and finally making it to a senior
position in a bank. Her life reflected modern Chinese women’s struggles for higher social
status.
Chinoy, Mike. China Live: People Power and the Television Revolution. Rowman &
Littlefield, 1999.
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Cochran, Sherman. Encountering Chinese Networks: Western, Japanese, and
Chinese Corporations in China, 1880-1937. University of California Press, 2000.
Discussion of how businesses tried to retain control of corporate hierarchies while adapting
to local social networks through adjustments to dramatic changes in Chinese society,
politics, and foreign affairs.
Dai, Shijie. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. Random House, 2002.
An enchanting tale of two hapless city boys exiled to a remote mountain village for
reeducation during the Cultural Revolution.
Davis, Deborah ed. The Consumer Revolution in Urban China. University of
California Press, 1999.
The definitive book on China’s consumer revolution. The volume examines how, during the past
decade of market reform, China’s growing private consumerism is replacing the Maoist egalitarian
society oriented toward goods provided publicly or in the workplace….The emphasis is on the
power, status, and affluence these goods and services signal in a society stratified by increasing
income inequalities.
Diamant, Neil J. Revolutionizing the Family: Politics, Love, and Divorce in Urban
and Rural China, 1949-1968. University of California Press, 2000.
Entwisle, Barbara, and Gail Henderson, eds. Re-Drawing Boundaries: Work,
Households, and Gender in China. University of California Press, 2000.
Representing the culmination of more than a decade of empirical research in post-Mao China, this
collection of essays explores changes in the nature of work in relation to changes in households,
migration patterns, and gender roles during an era of economic reform.
Esherick, Joseph. Remaking the Chinese City: Modernity and National Identity,
1900-1950. University of Hawaii Press, 2000.
Evans, Harriet and Stephanie Donald. Picturing Power in the People’s Republic of
China: Posters of the Cultural Revolution. Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.
Fairbank, John King, and Ssu-yu Teng. China's response to the West; a documentary
survey, 1839-1923. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1954.
A collection of documents from various aspects of Chinese life focusing on why and
how to modernize China.
Fairbank. Chinabound : a fifty-year memoir. New York : Harper & Row,
1982.
A memoir of the first and most famous modern China specialist in the U.S., on his life in
China before 1950. Vivid descriptions of many aspects of China.
Fogel, Joshua, ed. The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography. University
of California Press, 2000.
A debate rages among historians over the casualties of the Nanjing Massacre in 1937, in which
Japanese troops may have slaughtered up to 300,000 Chinese civilians. But this volume shows
that the even bigger story is how the “Rape of Nanjing” shaped the national identities of China and
Japan.
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Ha, Jin. The Crazed. Random House (Pantheon), 2002.
A novel exploring the perennial conflicts between convention and individualism, integrity
and pragmatism, loyalty and betrayal.
Lee, Leo Ou-fan. Shanghai Modern: the Flowering of a New Urban Culture in
China, 1930-1945. Harvard University Press, 1999.
Extensive coverage of Shanghai cinema, popular magazines, and popular writers in republican
China
Li, Cheng. Rediscovering China: Dynamics and Dilemmas of Reform. Rowman &
Littlefield, 1997.
Li, Cheng. China’s Leaders: the New Generation. Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
Provides a clear sense of the generational change currently underway in the Chinese leadership.
Lindau, Huan and Timothy Cheek. Market Economics and Political Change:
Comparing China and Mexico. Rowman & Littlefield, 1998 (paper).
Link, Perry, Richard Madsen, and Paul Pickowicz, Popular China: Unofficial Culture
in a Globalizing Society. Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
The book shows how economic and social changes caused by globalization, in combination with
the continuing Party dictatorship, have presented ordinary Chinese with a new array of moral and
cultural challenges that have changed the face of China.
Liu, Xin. In One’s Own Shadow: An Ethnographic Account of the Condition of
Post-reform Rural China. University of California Press, 2000.
An unflinching yet sympathetic view of people trapped in a broad national transformation that is
not of their own making. The characters and strategies that emerge from this study are important,
troubling, unforgettable.
Liu, Xiuwu. Jumping into the Sea: From Academics to Entrepreneurs in South
China. Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
Liu brings the adventure and uncertainty of [China’s]changing business environment to life as he
narrates on intriguing and important tale about the founding of a new Chinese enterprise.
Ma, Jian. Red Dust: A Path Through China. Random House (Anchor), 2002.
A remarkable picture of a country in meltdown between communism and capitalism.
Saich, Tony. Governance and Politics of China. Palgrave, 2002.
Highly readable.
Salisbury, Harrison. The Long March.
Journalist Salisbury retook the 6,000 mile long march that the Chinese Communists took in
tactical retreat from the pursuit of the Nationalists in 1934-35 to write this book.
Snow, Edgar. Red star over China. New York : Grove Press, [1973, c1968].
Solinger, Dorothy. Contesting Citizenship in Urban China: Peasant Migrants, the
State, and the Logic of the Market. University of California Press, 1999.
There is no better book than this for readers who want a single volume that underscores both the
dynamics and ambiguities of Chinese reforms.
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Spence, Jonathan D. The Gate of Heavenly Peace : the Chinese and their revolution,
1895-1980. New York : Viking Press, 1981.
Spence, an old China specialist, gives a complex account of the Chinese intellectuals and
Chinese politics in the late 19th-early 20th centuries.
Spence, Jonathan D. To change China : Western advisers in China, 1620-1960.
Stapleton, Kristin. Civilizing Chengdu: Chinese Urban Reform, 1895-1937. Harvard
University Press, 2000.
Tsin, Michael. Nation, Governance, and Modernity in China: Canton 1900-1927.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.
Unger, Jonathan. The Transformation of Rural China. M.E.Sharpe, 2002.
Based on a quarter century of interviews with farmers and rural officials from various parts
of China, this book tracks the extraordinary changes that have swept the countryside from
the Mao era through the Deng era to the Jiang era (from the 1960s-1990s). It explores these
changes from the multiple perspectives of political, social and economic transformation,
showing how each impacts upon the others.
Xinran, The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices. Random House (Pantheon),
2002.
Wales, Nym. Inside Red China. New York : Da Capo Press, 1977, c1939.
Wales, Nym. Red dust: autobiographies of Chinese Communists, as told to Nym
Wales.
Wang, Ping. Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China. Random House (Anchor),
2002.
Wang, Zheng. Women and the Chinese Enlightenment. University of California
Press, 1999.
Excellent introduction to the Chinese feminisms in the New Culture Movement (1915-25).
Wang, Anyi. Baotown, translated by Martha Avery. New York: W. W. Norton &
Company, c1985.
Wei Hui. Shanghai baobei (Shanghai Baby).
Weston, Timothy, & Lionel Jensen. China Beyond the Headlines. Rowman &
Littlfield, 2000.
van Kemenade, Willem. China, Hong Kong, Taiwan Inc. Alfred Knopf, 1997.
White, Tyrene. China Briefing, 1997-99. M.E.Sharpe, 2000 (pb)
Zhang, Eileen. Rouge of the North (published in the 1950s; reprinted by UC Berkeley
in 1998)
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--------. Naked Earth (1956)
--------. Rice Sprout Song (1955).
Zhang, Jingyuan. Psychoanalysis in China: Literary Transformation, 1919-49.
Cornell University Press, 1992.
A historical and bibliographical study of the reception and interpretation of Freud’s ideas in China
and an analysis of the use of these ideas in literature and literary criticism.
Zhang, Xinxin. The Dreams of Our Generation, trans. & edited by
Edward Gunn, Donna Jung, and Patricia Farr (Cornell, 1986).
Zhang, Yingjin. Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922-1943. Stanford
University Press, 1999.
This book covers Shanghai cinema as a vital force in Shanghai culture in republican China
Japan
Beasley, W.G. The Meiji Restoration. Stanford, 1970.
Borg, Dorothy. Pearl Harbor as History.
Brownlee, John. Japanese Historians and the National Myths, 1600-1945: the
Age of the Gods and Emperor Jinmu. UBC Press, 1997.
Cole, Robert. Japanese Blue Collar: Changing Traditions.
Craig, Timothy. Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture.
M.E.Sharpe, 2001.
Dore, Ronald. City Life in Japan.
Dore, Ronald. Portrait of a Japanese Village.
Fields, Norma, From My Grandmother’s bedside: sketches of postwar Tokyo. California,
1997.
Fukuzawa, Yukichi, Autobiography. NY: Schocken Books, 1966.
Fukuzawa, Yukichi. An Encouragement of Learning.
Hanley, Swan, Everyday Things in Pre-modern Japan. California, 1997.
Hendry, Joy. Understanding Japanese Society, 2nd ed. Routledge, 1995.
A comprehensive look at Japanese society including identity, family, socialization,
community, status, education, religion, career, arts and entertainment, politics and
law.
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Hendry, Joy. Becoming Japanese: the World of the Preschool Child. University of
Hawaii Press, 1986.
Includes goals for children, techniques and arenas of training, kindergartens and day
nurseries, and the world view presented to the child.
Hersey, John. Hiroshima.
Hibbett, Howard. Contemporary Japanese Literature—An Anthology of fiction, Film and
other writings since 1945. 1977.
Hodgson, James Day, et al. Doing business with the New Japan. Rowman &
Littlefield, 2000 (cloth).
Ikegami, Eiko, The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of
Modern Japan. Harvard, 1997.
Imamura, Anne, Re Imaging Japanese Women. Berkeley, University of California Press,
1996.
________, Urban Japanese Housewives, at Home and in the Community. Honolulu, Hawaii,
1987.
Ishiguro, Kazuo. An Artist of the Floating World. Faber & Faber, 1986.
The author of The Remains of the Day, Ishiguro described post WWII Japanese
social changes through the relationship between an artist father and his two grown
daughters.
Johnson, Chalmers. Okinawa, Cold War Island. Califorina: Japan Policy Research Institute,
1999.
Keene, Donald. Emperor of Japan : Meiji and his world, 1852-1912 New York : Columbia
University Press, c2002.
Kim, Won Bae, Culture and the City in East Asia. Oxford, 1997.
Kojima, Takashi. Japanese Short Stories.
LeBlanc, Robin. The Political World of the Japanese Housewife. University of
California Press, 1999.
Morita, Akio, Made in Japan, Akio Morita and Sony.
Morris, Evan. Modern Japanese Stories—An Anthology. 1962.
Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. Re-inventing Japan. Sharpe, 1997.
Napier, Susan. Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke. St. Martin’s Press, 2001.
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Nelson, John K., A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine. University of Washington Press, 1996.
Oe, Kenzaburo. A Personal Matter. (novel)
Partner, Simon. Assembled in Japan: Electrical Goods and the Making of the Japanese
Consumer. University of California Press, 1999.
Story, up to the 1960s, of Japan’s electrical/electronics industry; its producers and consumers, and
how the industry changed the Japanese in both capacities—changed their outlook on life as well as
their lifestyle.
Patrick, Hugh, ed. Japanese Industrialization and Its social Consequences.
Patrick, Hugh, & Henry Rosovsky, eds. Asia’s New Giant, How the New Japanese Economy
Works(1976).
Plath, David ed. Adult Episodes in Japan. 1975.
Plath, David. Long Engagements: Maturity in Modern Japan. Stanford, 1980.
Prindle, Tamae, ed., Made in Japan and Other Japanese Business Novels. 1989.
Richie, Donald. Japanese Cinema—film Style and National Character.
Rogers, Lawrence. Tokyo Stories: A Literary Stroll. University of California Press, 2002.
This anthology of translated short stories
Rohankada, Pagoda, Skull and Samurai, Three Stories (1892). 1982.
Sandler, Mark, The Confusion Era, Art and Culture During the Allied Occupation. U of
Washington Press, 1997.
Saikaku, Ihara, The Japanese Storehouse, or, the Millionaires gospel Modernized (1688).
1985.
Shibusawa, Eiichi, The Autobiography of Shibusawa Eiichi, from peasant to Entrepreneur.
NY:Columbia University Press, 1994.
Shuichi, Kato, A Sheep’s Song: The 20th Century Lived by a Japanese Writer. California, 1999.
Smith, Thomas. Political Change and Industrial Developments in Japan, Government
Enterprises, 1868-80.
Soseki, Natsume, Kokoro. (novel)
Vogel, Ezra, Japan as Number One, Lessons for America. NY: Harper Colophon books, 1980.
Vogel, Ezra, Japan’s New Middle Class: The Salaryman and His Family in a Tokyo Suburb.
Berkeley, University of California Press, 1963.
Yoshino, M.Y. Japan’s Multinational Enterprises.
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Young, Louise, Japan’s Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism.
California, 1998.
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