For generations scholars and the general public have looked to John King Fairbank for knowledge and insights about China. In four editions of this work he has provided these. Reviews of this book: "An indispensable book for thoughtful people." DD--New York Times Book Review "Fairbank provides a miraculously concise account of Chinese civilization from its foundations to the present day...Maps, photographs, and an 80-page bibliography make this an invaluable reference work." DD--New Republic "As useful and timely as when it first appeared in 1948. Written by America's foremost China scholar, John Fairbank, the book addresses a popular, not the academic, audience. It offers a sweeping view of the Chinese polity from ancient times up to the recent, convoluted period of Western contact, spiced by the wit and insight into detail of a geographer who drew the maps himself...Yet the book offers much to the specialist as well as the layman. To the historian, a state-of-the-art review of the latest historical analysis of modern china...To the student, a cogent guide to the field...For the diplomat and businessman, the work explores that most intangible but also most influential area of human feeling between the two countries that has launched ventures and derailed them." DD--China Business Review "The best general introduction to the Chinese political system...A book of love and great learning." DD--Kirkus Reviews "Still flashes with brilliance in its latest (fourth) incarnation...With this latest edition of what is arguably the best guide to China in any language, American and other non-Chinese readers may finally catch a glimpse of the 'very complex' Chinese way of life." DD--Asiaweek Literary Review "[Fairbank's] ability to transcend the academic to write a highly readable, authoritative, information-packed, perceptive and analytical account of the Chinese is unsurpassed. This is must reading for all Asiaphiles." DD--Asia Mail

The Fragile Scholar examines the pre-modern construction of Chinese masculinity from the popular image of the fragile scholar (caizi) in late imperial Chinese fiction and drama. The book is an original contribution to the study of the construction of masculinity in the Chinese context from a comparative perspective (Euro-American). Its central thesis is that the concept of "masculinity" in pre-modern China was conceived in the network of hierarchical social and political power in a homosocial context rather than in opposition to "woman." In other words, gender discourse was more power-based than sex-based in pre-modern China, and Chinese masculinity was androgynous in nature. The author explains how the caizi discourse embodied the mediation between elite culture and popular culture by giving voice to the desire, fantasy, wants and tastes of urbanites.

This is the first Western language book to examine the chou ("clown") role-type in traditional Chinese drama--a role-type credited with so much importance that some critics insist that "withouth the chou, there would not be drama." This assertion is evaluated through an analysis of historical documents and translated play texts, fieldwork research, and from the perspectives of ethnomusicology and anthropology.

A quarterly of comparative studies of Chinese and foreign literatures.