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CHINA SINCE TIANANMEN: The Politics of Transition, Joseph Fewsmith, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2001, 320 pages, $26.95.
Joseph Fewsmith, a historian who began his scholarly career by investigating the attempts of Shanghai commercial and political elites to create a civil society between 1890 and 1930, eschews predicting apocalyptic change. Instead, he shows readers how social and economic changes since 1989 have affected political and intellectual scenes. Because of his broad knowledge of Chinese history, Fewsmith is not stampeded to radical conclusions. This book is a continuation of his investigation of the socio-political relationships among China's elites since the 1890s.
China Since Tiananmen: The Politics of Transition is organized in three parts: the unsuccessful post-1989 attack on Deng Xiaoping's reform program; the simultaneous changing definition of reform and rebirth of popular nationalism; and the interactions of elite power struggles with popular nationalism. Fewsmith concludes with an assessment of China's changing relationship with the world.