This successor volume to China beyond the Headlines takes the reader even farther beyond the "front stage" to explore a China few Westerners have seen. The contributors argue that the great gap between what specialists understand and the general public believes has led to distorted and potentially dangerous misunderstandings of the most powerful emerging player on the global stage. Seeking to bridge that gap, a group of prominent scholars, journalists, and activists challenge readers to move past the typical images of China presented by the media and to think about the common problems shared by China and the United States. In an entirely new set of essays, they explore such critical issues as environmental degradation, nationalism, unemployment, film and literature, news reporting, the Internet, sex tourism, and the costs of the economic boom to vividly portray the complexity of life in contemporary China and how surprisingly often it speaks to the American experience. Contributions by: Bei Dao, Susan D. Blum, Timothy Cheek, Martin Fackler, John Gittings, Howard Goldblatt, Peter Hays Gries, Sandra Teresa Hyde, Lionel M. Jensen, Tong Lam, Sylvia Li-chun Lin, Jonathan Noble, Tim Oakes, David Ownby, Judith Shapiro, Timothy B. Weston, and Xiao Qiang

This successor volume to China beyond the Headlines takes the reader even farther beyond the "front stage" to explore a China few Westerners have seen. The contributors argue that the great gap between what specialists understand and the general public believes has led to distorted and potentially dangerous misunderstandings of the most powerful emerging player on the global stage. Seeking to bridge that gap, a group of prominent scholars, journalists, and activists challenge readers to move past the typical images of China presented by the media and to think about the common problems shared by China and the United States. In an entirely new set of essays, they explore such critical issues as environmental degradation, nationalism, unemployment, film and literature, news reporting, the Internet, sex tourism, and the costs of the economic boom to vividly portray the complexity of life in contemporary China and how surprisingly often it speaks to the American experience. Contributions by: Bei Dao, Susan D. Blum, Timothy Cheek, Martin Fackler, John Gittings, Howard Goldblatt, Peter Hays Gries, Sandra Teresa Hyde, Lionel M. Jensen, Tong Lam, Sylvia Li-chun Lin, Jonathan Noble, Tim Oakes, David Ownby, Judith Shapiro, Timothy B. Weston, and Xiao Qiang

Throughout the twentieth century, Beijing University (or Beida) has been at the center of China's greatest political and cultural upheavals--from the May Fourth Movement of 1919 to the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s to the tragic events in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Why this should be--how Beida's historical importance has come to transcend that of a mere institution of higher learning--is a question at the heart of this book. A study of intellectuals and political culture during the past century's tumultuous early decades, The Power of Position is the first to focus on Beida, China's oldest and best-known national university. Timothy B. Weston portrays the university as a key locus used by intellectuals to increase their influence in society. Weston analyzes the links between intellectuals' political and cultural commitments and their specific manner of living. He also compares Beijing's intellectual culture with that of the rising metropolis of Shanghai. What emerges is a remarkably nuanced and complex picture of life at China's leading university, especially in the decades leading up to the May Fourth Movement.

In the third volume of this popular series, leading experts provide fascinating and unexpected insights into critical issues of culture, economy, politics, and society in today's China. This world, outside the reach of state control and either misunderstood or unreported in Western media, gains clarity and dimension from the fresh insights of a prominent group of activists, investigative journalists, lawyers, scholars, and travelers, who share a common interest in lessening the profound information gap between China and the rest of the world. In sixteen new essays, they address such key topics as civil society, consumerism, environmental adversity, ethnic tension, the Internet, legal reform, new media and social networking, nationalist tourism, sex and popular culture, as well the costs of urban gigantism to portray the complexity of life in contemporary China-and how, increasingly, it speaks to the everyday experience of Americans. Contributions by: David Bandurski, Susan D. Blum, Timothy Cheek, Gady Epstein, Andrew S. Erickson, Lionel M. Jensen, John Kamm, Wenquing Kang, Katherine Palmer Kaup, Travis Klingberg, Orion A. Lewis, Benjamin L. Liebman, Jonathan S. Noble, Tim Oakes, Jessica C. Teets, Alex L. Wang, and Timothy B. Weston.