No end of questions could be raised about neglected topics, balance of coverage, the quality of writing in several chapters, and much more, but this volume maintains a commendably high standard, especially when one considers the difficulties of writing the recent history of so complex and opaque a society. The entire series stands as a tribute to its major architect, and one of the two general editors, the late John K. Fairbank. The Historian Specialists will find much to learn from these essays, which include the latest Western and Japanese scholarship, and undergraduates and graduates will mine them for their term papers. Even in the super-charged world of Chinese research the volume should have a long life. Jonathan Mirsky, New York Review of Books ...the last two volumes of the Cambridge History of China still constitute the most substantial textbook on the history of communist China. Rene Goldman, Canadian Journal of History ...both editors and authors are surely to be congratulated for their achievement. The book is a fitting capstone to a magnificent compilation of knowledge and wisdom concerning modern China, likely to be invaluable to students and scholars for many years to come. Lowell Dittmer, American Historical Review