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Rating: 
Summary: A Profound Moment of Living History
Review: Having spent countless hours over the last six years reading on modern China's predicament as an East Asian Studies major in college, I can't believe I just recently found this book. It's a fresh read, delightfully accessible in execution, intelligent in its treatment of these literati voices, and often profound in its prodding of the historical underbelly, suggesting many points of fissure and acute sensitivity in an often hardened, decayed lining. The book documents and analyzes the opinions of Chinese intellectuals during the relatively open period leading up to the Tiananmen incident in 1989. Link's arranged collection of anecdotes and quotes, along with his own comments, provides insight into a period that will no doubt become more and more significant in the coming years because the questions and issues on the minds and in the words of Chinese intellectuals remain largely unresolved and simmering beneath the happy surface of glorious riches. One valid criticism of the book made already by another reviewer is the conspicuous paucity of common voices--i.e. voices of those outside of the Chinese intelligentsia. However, in defense of Link's work this objection requires far too much additional background and study to answer. Chinese intellectuals have always enjoyed a privileged position within social and political debates. While the voices of non-intellectuals would give a fuller picture, the focus on intellectuals underscores yet another tension plaguing modern China; that is, the inability of intellectuals to relate to the masses, or their lack of trust in them. This gap was made patently clear during the Tiananmen protests when students dominated the political theatre and often refused the help of, or just simply ignored, the workers. But taking this premise for granted, Link's work is highly charged with meaning and relevance, even to a much richer China almost a decade and a half later. Most interesting are his explanations of official language, or public language, as opposed to private, personal language. While we may complain to no end of the duplicity, fakeness, and hypocrisy of politicians in the democratic world, it is sobering to think of the degree to which language meaning must be bifurcated in China. How do you make sense of a world where there is the official story, often sweetened or fabricated to suit political ends, the truth of which is defended by the government and military with threats of social alienation or physical harm, and the unofficial story, which can only be shared privately, whispered by friends and neighbors within the safety of their own homes? What does this do to one's perception of reality? Overall I thoroughly enjoyed Link's portrait and feel that it will be a significant piece of history which will continue to inform our thoughts on China as it continues to stumble into its own.
Rating:
Summary: A Profound Moment of Living History
Review: Having spent countless hours over the last six years reading on modern China's predicament as an East Asian Studies major in college, I can't believe I just recently found this book. It's a fresh read, delightfully accessible in execution, intelligent in its treatment of these literati voices, and often profound in its prodding of the historical underbelly, suggesting many points of fissure and acute sensitivity in an often hardened, decayed lining. The book documents and analyzes the opinions of Chinese intellectuals during the relatively open period leading up to the Tiananmen incident in 1989. Link's arranged collection of anecdotes and quotes, along with his own comments, provides insight into a period that will no doubt become more and more significant in the coming years because the questions and issues on the minds and in the words of Chinese intellectuals remain largely unresolved and simmering beneath the happy surface of glorious riches. One valid criticism of the book made already by another reviewer is the conspicuous paucity of common voices--i.e. voices of those outside of the Chinese intelligentsia. However, in defense of Link's work this objection requires far too much additional background and study to answer. Chinese intellectuals have always enjoyed a privileged position within social and political debates. While the voices of non-intellectuals would give a fuller picture, the focus on intellectuals underscores yet another tension plaguing modern China; that is, the inability of intellectuals to relate to the masses, or their lack of trust in them. This gap was made patently clear during the Tiananmen protests when students dominated the political theatre and often refused the help of, or just simply ignored, the workers. But taking this premise for granted, Link's work is highly charged with meaning and relevance, even to a much richer China almost a decade and a half later. Most interesting are his explanations of official language, or public language, as opposed to private, personal language. While we may complain to no end of the duplicity, fakeness, and hypocrisy of politicians in the democratic world, it is sobering to think of the degree to which language meaning must be bifurcated in China. How do you make sense of a world where there is the official story, often sweetened or fabricated to suit political ends, the truth of which is defended by the government and military with threats of social alienation or physical harm, and the unofficial story, which can only be shared privately, whispered by friends and neighbors within the safety of their own homes? What does this do to one's perception of reality? Overall I thoroughly enjoyed Link's portrait and feel that it will be a significant piece of history which will continue to inform our thoughts on China as it continues to stumble into its own.
Rating: 
Summary: Definitely more than a chinese intelectuals's life stories
Review: His book gives the comparison of the Western and the Eastern (namely Chinese) intelectuals' way of thinking in modern China periods. It gives structural and fundamental roles of the intelectuals to reform and restructure China in the middle of highly competitive world. I recommend this book as an additional resource for China studies.
Rating: 
Summary: A Good, But Narrow View
Review: Link's book is well written and is a very interesting account of one segment of Chinese life during the early years of China's reform process. However, it is also very narrow, looking at the circumstances of the elite intellectuals and occassionally overstating his, or his close Chinese friends, importance or experiences. The book doesn't come to address the conditions or lives of the typical urban citizen of Beijing or any other Chinese city and thus is lacking. It seems Link just took much of his personal interaction with Chinese intellectuals and turned it into a book. Overall, he is successful in capturing the experiences of many Chinese who went overseas to study and returned in the late 1980s, though circumstances have changed a lot since then. Further, he is able to capture much of the discontent among intellectuals which ultimately becomes the base of the Tiananmen protests.
Rating:
Summary: A Good, But Narrow View
Review: With the recent opening of China's market, it is hard to deny that the Chinese will be major players in the world's economy in the twenty-first century. This book by Perry Link offers an exclusive look into life of the Chinese throughout the 1900's. It examines the culture, history, and politics of China during this period. Link will propose questions (for example, "What are some of the reasons that production was stultified in China during Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution?") and have the intellectuals who were alive during those events answer the questions themselves. It is an extremely effective strategy because not only is it informative, but it is also a page-turner. Moreover, Link gives his own first-hand accounts of experiences he had while living in China. Both the Chinese citizens' and Link's stories can be frightening, disturbing, and enraging, but they are always complete and written in a language that is highly readable. This is a thorough, well-written book by a brilliant professor, but it is also invaluable because few individuals have had the contacts and the language capabilities that would enable them to write a book like this. It cuts through the surface and tells its readers what the Chinese government does not want other people to hear --- the truth.
Rating:
Summary: The best authority on Twentieth century life in China
Review: With the recent opening of China's market, it is hard to deny that the Chinese will be major players in the world's economy in the twenty-first century. This book by Perry Link offers an exclusive look into life of the Chinese throughout the 1900's. It examines the culture, history, and politics of China during this period. Link will propose questions (for example, "What are some of the reasons that production was stultified in China during Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution?") and have the intellectuals who were alive during those events answer the questions themselves. It is an extremely effective strategy because not only is it informative, but it is also a page-turner. Moreover, Link gives his own first-hand accounts of experiences he had while living in China. Both the Chinese citizens' and Link's stories can be frightening, disturbing, and enraging, but they are always complete and written in a language that is highly readable. This is a thorough, well-written book by a brilliant professor, but it is also invaluable because few individuals have had the contacts and the language capabilities that would enable them to write a book like this. It cuts through the surface and tells its readers what the Chinese government does not want other people to hear --- the truth.
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