"These nimble and knowledgeable essays from a respected historian are mostly reprinted from small circulation journals. They include commentaries on such recent events as the Tiananmen Incident, as well as light but erudite historical thought pieces, such as one on former President Grant's world tour in 1879. Others look at the fate of globalized franchises such as McDonald's and Marxism, the challenges of historical and cross-cultural analogies, and sympathetic critiques of reporting on China. Recommended for medium-sized and larger libraries, as well as for the personal reading of librarians interested in China." --Library Journal June 2007

If Chairman Mao came back to life today, what would he think of Nanjing's bookstore, the Librairie Avant-Garde, where it is easier to find primers on Michel Foucault's philosophy than copies of the Little Red Book? What does it really mean to order a latte at Starbucks in Beijing? Is it possible that Aldous Huxley wrote a novel even more useful than Orwell's 1984 for making sense of post-Tiananmen China--or post-9/11 America?

In these often playful, always enlightening "tales," Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom poses these and other questions as he journeys from 19th-century China into the future, and from Shanghai to Chicago, St. Louis, and Budapest. He argues that simplistic views of China and Americanization found in most soundbite-driven media reports serve us poorly as we try to understand China's place in the current world order--or our own.