Suggested Readings

Holm, Bill. Coming Home Crazy: An Alphabet of Chinese Essays. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 1990.
A very entertaining and enlightening book on life in contemporary China through the eyes of an American who went to teach English.

Jung, Chang. Wild Swans. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.
A biography that traces the lives of a grandmother, mother, and daughter, showing how each generation faced a very different China.

Kristof, Nicholas, and Sheryl WuDunn. China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.
Very interesting book that covers many aspects of Chinese history and life from 1988-1993. Written by journalists who were foreign correspondents for the New York Times. Very readable.

Miles, James. The Legacy of Tiananmen: China in Disarray. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1994.
A look at the political side of China since the events at Tiananmen.

Spence, Jonathan. The Search for Modern China. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1990.
New York Times bestseller; easy to read; relatively good historical background to contemporary China.