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"This lavishly illustrated volume explores the history of China during a period of dramatic shifts and surprising transformations, from the founding of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) through to the present day. The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern China promises to be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand this rising superpower on the verge of what promises to be the 'Chinese century,' introducing readers to important but often overlooked events in China's past, such as the bloody Taiping Civil War (1850-1864), which had a death toll far higher than the roughly contemporaneous American Civil War. It also helps readers see more familiar landmarks in Chinese history in new ways, such as the Opium War (1839-1842), the Boxer Uprising of 1900, the rise to power of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, and the Tiananmen protests and Beijing Massacre of 1989. This is one of the first major efforts--and in many ways the most ambitious to date--to come to terms with the broad sweep of modern Chinese history, taking readers from the origins of modern China right up through the dramatic events of the last few years (the Beijing Games, the financial crisis, and China's rise to global economic pre-eminence) which have so fundamentally altered Western views of China and China's place in the world"--Publisher description

The paradoxical origins of human rights / Lynn Hunt -- The Chinese Revolution and contemporary paradoxes / Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom -- Tradition, human rights, and the English Revolution / David Zaret -- Natural rights in the American Revolution : the American amalgam / Michael Zuckert -- A European experience : human rights and citizenship in revolutionary Russia / Yanni Kotsonis -- An enlightenment for outcasts : some Vietnamese stories / Alexander Woodside -- India, human rights, and "Asian values" / Sumit Ganguly -- What absence is made of : human rights in Africa / Florence Bernault -- (Homo)sexuality, human rights, and revolution in Latin America / James N. Green -- Ethics and the rearmament of imperialism : the French case / Kristin Ross -- The strange career of radical Islam / Timothy McDaniel -- Human rights and empire's embrace : a Latin American counterpoint

Abstract: Some of the many China stories to attract attention recently have involved NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) protests by largely middle class crowds gathering to demand a greater say in urban development plans. This article argues that such protests a) are a significant addition to the already complex landscape of Chinese collective action (and signal a shift in some quarters from worrying about obstacles to modernization to worrying about the social costs of such modernization); but b) should not be interpreted as suggesting China's imminent democratization (simply because restive middle classes have contributed to the end of authoritarian rule elsewhere).

A review essay on a book by Pallavi Aiyar, Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China (New Delhi: HarperCollins India, 2008).

Shanghai is routinely described as "unique," yet also routinely likened to other places. It thus alternately invites and defies categorization. After introducing general methodological concerns and providing basic information about the main historical stages through which Shanghai has passed, this article focuses on the period of rapid development and re-engagement with the world that began in the early 1980s, arguing that a particularly productive way to think about today's Shanghai is as a "reglobalizing postsocialist" urban center—a category that also, for example, includes Budapest.