num_pages: 336
description: This audacious and illuminating memoir by Richard Baum a senior China scholar and sometime policy advisor reflects on forty years of learning about and interacting with the Peoples Republic of China from the height of Maoism during the authors UC Berkeley student days in the volatile 1960s through globalization. Anecdotes from Baums professional life illustrate the alternately peculiar frustrating fascinating and risky activity of China watching  the process by which outsiders gather and decipher official and unofficial information to figure out whats really going on behind Chinas veil of political secrecy and propaganda. Baum writes entertainingly telling his narrative with witty stories about people places and eras.China Watcher will appeal to scholars and followers of international events who lived through the era of profound political and academic change described in the book as well as to younger post-Mao generations who will enjoy its descriptions of the personalities and political forces that shaped the modern field of China studies.
language: English
title: China Watcher: Confessions of a Peking Tom
publisher: University of Washington Press