The speed of Chinese economic growth means that books inevitably tend to become a little dated rather quickly. Barry Naughton, The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth (Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press, 2007), is a comprehensive review of Chinese economic development after 1949 and subsequently during the reform period, while Peter Nolan, Transforming China: Globalisation, Transition and Development (London: Anthem Press, 2005), offers an interesting assessment of the global prospects for Chinese companies. Elizabeth C. Economy, The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China’s Future (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), discusses China’s environmental challenge, which can explored in more topical fashion on www.chinadia- logue.net, a website devoted to China’s environment.
Zheng Yongnian, Will China Become Democratic?: Elite, Class and Regime Transition (Singapore: EAI, 2004), is a very useful assessment of political trends in contemporary China, while Suisheng Zhao, A Nation-State by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), provides an excellent analysis of the development of the Chinese nation-state. Christopher R. Hughes, Chinese Nationalism in the Global Era (London: Routledge, 2006), is one of a number of recent books exploring Chinese nationalism.
As explained in Chapter 8, all too little has been written about race and ethnicity in China, though there is more on the Chinese sense of cultural superiority. In the parched territory of the former, Frank Dikötter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China (London: Hurst and Company, 1992), remains, alas, something of an oasis. I would like to be able to mention books by Chinese writers but there is really only one, the important essay by Chen Kuan-Hsing in his forthcoming book Towards De-Imperialization (Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press). For the time being, a version of this, revised in 2009, can be found at www.interasia. org/khchen/online/Epilogue.pdf. Wang Gungwu, The Chineseness of China: Selected Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), is, as the title suggests, a perceptive and informative study of China ’s distinctiveness.
As for China ’s relationship with East Asia, there remains no better book on the tributary-state system than John King Fairbank, ed., The Chinese World Order: Traditional China’s Foreign Relations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968). The best survey of China’s present relations with its neighbours is David Shambaugh, ed., Power Shift: China and Asia’s New Dynamics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).
On China ’s relationship with the wider world, John W. Garver’s two books — China and Iran: Ancient Partners in a Post-Imperial World (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006) and Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press: 2001), are models of their kind. There are many books on the Sino-American relationship, with David M. Lampton, Same Bed, Different Dreams: Managing US- China Relations, 1989-2000 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), being the most comprehensive.
On a contemporary note, Mark Leonard, What Does China Think? (London: Fourth Estate, 2008), provides an interesting guide to present thinking across a range of subjects amongst Chinese intellectuals and policy-makers.
Finally, for those of a statistical persuasion, there are two books by that doyen of historical statistics, Angus Maddison, namely Chinese Economic Performance in the Long Run, Second Edition, Revised and Updated: 960- 2030 AD (Paris: OECD, 2007) and The World Economy (Paris: OECD, 2007). The latter combines two volumes originally published separately: 1: A Millennial Perspective and 2: Historical Statistics.
Select Bibliography
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