Want to know what books Elizabeth Perry recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Elizabeth Perry's favorite book recommendations of all time.
1
This study opens a critical perspective on the slow death of socialism and the rebirth of capitalism in the world's most dynamic and populous country. Based on remarkable fieldwork and extensive interviews in Chinese textile, apparel, machinery, and household appliance factories, Against the Law finds a rising tide of labor unrest mostly hidden from the world's attention. Providing a broad political and economic analysis of this labor struggle together with fine-grained ethnographic detail, the book portrays the Chinese working class as workers' stories unfold in bankrupt state... more This study opens a critical perspective on the slow death of socialism and the rebirth of capitalism in the world's most dynamic and populous country. Based on remarkable fieldwork and extensive interviews in Chinese textile, apparel, machinery, and household appliance factories, Against the Law finds a rising tide of labor unrest mostly hidden from the world's attention. Providing a broad political and economic analysis of this labor struggle together with fine-grained ethnographic detail, the book portrays the Chinese working class as workers' stories unfold in bankrupt state factories and global sweatshops, in crowded dormitories and remote villages, at street protests as well as in quiet disenchantment with the corrupt officialdom and the fledgling legal system. less 
Elizabeth PerryYes. My last book is by Ching Kwan Lee who is a sociologist at UCLA. She has done a considerable amount of fieldwork in China on labour protests. And in this book, she compares protests among workers in two different parts of China. One is the northeast, what she calls the rustbelt. And the other is the southeast, what she calls the sunbelt, although frankly there’s so much pollution down there,... (Source)
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2
"We want neither gods nor emperors", went the words from the Chinese version of The Internationale. Students sang the old socialist song as they gathered in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in the Spring of 1989. Craig Calhoun, a sociologist who witnessed the monumental event, offers a vivid, carefully crafted analysis of the student movement, its complex leadership, its eventual suppression, and its continuing legacy. more "We want neither gods nor emperors", went the words from the Chinese version of The Internationale. Students sang the old socialist song as they gathered in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in the Spring of 1989. Craig Calhoun, a sociologist who witnessed the monumental event, offers a vivid, carefully crafted analysis of the student movement, its complex leadership, its eventual suppression, and its continuing legacy. less 
Jeffrey WasserstromYes, I like that about it. It’s sometimes forgotten that that was one of the songs that the students rallied to. Calhoun is now director of the London School of Economics. He was an outsider to Chinese studies, but he was in China at the time of the protests in 1989, teaching a course on social movements. He brought a freshness to thinking about what was going on that sometimes people who are... (Source)
Elizabeth PerryThis is a rather interesting book by Craig Calhoun. He is a sociologist, not a China specialist. But he happened to be in Beijing at the time of the 1989 uprising and, unlike most China scholars, he was smart enough to stop other things he was doing and go out and study this remarkable movement that was unfolding around him. So he went out and conducted some guerrilla surveys among the students... (Source)
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3
Liang Heng, Judith Shapiro | 4.26
An autobiography of a young Chinese man whose childhood and adolescence were spent in Mao's China during the Cultural Revolution. more An autobiography of a young Chinese man whose childhood and adolescence were spent in Mao's China during the Cultural Revolution. less Elizabeth PerryThis book really is a very easy read. It’s a memoir of Liang Heng who himself had been a rather young Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution. And what I like about this book is that it gives a first-hand understanding of why Chinese during the Cultural Revolution did the things they did. We now look back on that period of the 1960s and say, ‘Oh, all of China went crazy, there was this large... (Source)
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Joseph W. Esherick | 4.36
In the summer of 1900, bands of peasant youths from the villages of north China streamed into Beijing to besiege the foreign legations, attracting the attention of the entire world. Joseph Esherick reconstructs the early history of the Boxers, challenging the traditional view that they grew from earlier anti-dynastic sects, and stressing instead the impact of social ecology and popular culture. more In the summer of 1900, bands of peasant youths from the villages of north China streamed into Beijing to besiege the foreign legations, attracting the attention of the entire world. Joseph Esherick reconstructs the early history of the Boxers, challenging the traditional view that they grew from earlier anti-dynastic sects, and stressing instead the impact of social ecology and popular culture. less Elizabeth PerryOne thing I should say about all of the books that I have chosen is that they are written by people who devoted an extraordinary effort into really getting inside these particular stories. And they did so either with an exceptional research effort, or with access to first-hand information about China. In the case of Joe Esherick, he spent 1979-80 in China. He was part of the first group of... (Source)
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5
The first Westerner to meet Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Communist leaders in 1936, Edgar Snow came away with the first authorized account of Mao’s life, as well as a history of the famous Long March and the men and women who were responsible for the Chinese revolution. Out of that experience came Red Star Over China, a classic work that remains one of the most important books ever written about the birth of the Communist movement in China. This edition includes extensive notes on military and political developments in China, further interviews with Mao Tse-tung, a chronology covering 125... more The first Westerner to meet Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Communist leaders in 1936, Edgar Snow came away with the first authorized account of Mao’s life, as well as a history of the famous Long March and the men and women who were responsible for the Chinese revolution. Out of that experience came Red Star Over China, a classic work that remains one of the most important books ever written about the birth of the Communist movement in China. This edition includes extensive notes on military and political developments in China, further interviews with Mao Tse-tung, a chronology covering 125 years of Chinese revolution, and nearly a hundred detailed biographies of the men and women who were instrumental in making China what it is today. less Elizabeth Perryin some ways it seems the most dated of the books I’ve chosen, because it presents a totally rosy portrait of the Communist revolution. But I think for understanding modern China it’s extremely important. And that’s because it does, in rather sympathetic but comprehensive detail, point out both the importance of the land revolution, and the nationalistic revolution, as key elements in Mao... (Source)
John M HamiltonThis arguably is the most important book by an American foreign correspondent in the 20th century. At the time it was written in the mid-1930s nobody knew who the communists were. Many thought they were mere bandits. Snow went to the north-west of China to find them. When his book came out the whole equation changed; thereafter communism was understood to be a viable political movement. (Source)
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