of new conceptual content. Generally speaking they are written by a journalist or a business person at the end of their tenure in China. Usually anecdotal, they expand topics and themes for which western newspaper editors have largely prepared us. This book, balanced and well-informed, will question most westerners' assumptions about China. It analyzes the timing and benefits of democratization for a developing country against the priorities of modernisation as compared with the experiences of other countries in East Asia from Japan to the Philipinnes. Although it provides shocking evidence that China is held to a double standard, especially as compared with India and Russia, it nonetheless treads a balanced line not holding its punches on China's well known deficiencies in upholding human and civil rights. If you are not put off by an academic tone and a little jargon, you will find yourself at a new starting point for your thinking on China. In an attempt to go against the grain of Western public opinion, Peerenboom's work often sounds like a nuanced apologia for the shortcomings of the Chinese government (party and state) than of a detached intellectual view. Much of the premise of this book seems to be that human rights are contingent on the level of economic development and social stability in a country. While this may seem reasonable on the surface, some of Peerenbloom's claims are Panglossian. The author's remarks on the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) could have been published by the Information Office of the