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National Identity and Democratic Prospects in Socialist China
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Comments/Reviews
Description: This pioneering book explodes the conventional wisdom that China is a unique success story and reveals instead that the same forces that challenged other late Leninist socialist systems and multiple possibilities--federalist democratization (and a Greater China), divisions into new communities with passionate identities, and bloody chaos, even murderous civil war--are also building up similar dynamite in China. Professor Friedman offers an insightful, unique, and timely analysis that will make it less likely that the next great explosion in communist world and consequences will come as a surprise.
--The first book ever to investigate tendencies in China that might lead it down the same dangerous path as Russia and Yugoslavia
--Synthesizes theoretical knowledge of democratization, national identity studies, cultural analysis and gender analysis with a profound immersion in the particularities of the tensions and divisions that animate Chinese politics and society.
--Captures the fear of disintegration, chaos and internecine war that paralyzes forces of progressive change.
Comment(s): "In this wide-ranging and scintillating collection ... Friedman examines every facet of a national identity in the throes of change." -- Lowell Dittmer, University of California, Berkeley
"A challenging contribution to the debate about democratic prospects in China which vividly captures the contradictory cultural forces which have emerged with the crisis of national identity in the reform era." -- Frank Dikotter, University of London
"Friedman has a keen sense of history, acute enough to foresake prophecy, but to read carefully the powerful trends which interrogate the destiny of China." -- M. Crawford Young, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Review(s): Provocative and enormously illuminating. ... Richly documented. ... An enjoyable and provocative read. It is filled with interesting observations on the contemporary scene that provide a holistic, organic view of political and cultural change in China, studiously avoiding the economic reductionism that characterizes much of the Western literature on China's political future. The China Journal
[Friedman supplies] a plethora of insights, suggestions as to how and why democracy might evolve, and reasons not to believe the naysayers. ... Friedman affords the readers numerous insights into Chinese political culture, China's leadership, problems that are left over from the past and how they impact the present, and much more. ... Highly recommended. China Review International
[Friedman] has given some thoughtful speculations about the rapidly changing scene in China and some intriguing interpretations about how it reached its current state. He has also demonstrated that the thoughtful reflections of an engaged scholar about the passing scene in post-Mao China can have enduring value that is nearly the match of more systematic research endeavours. The China Quarterly
    
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