China Watcher

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 People's Republic of China, from the height of Maoism during the author's UC Berkeley student days in the volatile 1960s thro [...]
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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 People's Republic of China, from the height of Maoism during the author's UC Berkeley student days in the volatile 1960s through globalization. Anecdotes from Baum's 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 what's really going on behind China's 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.Richard Baum is distinguished professor of political science at UCLA and director emeritus of the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies. His publications include "China in Ferment: Perspectives on the Cultural Revolution"; "Prelude to Revolution: Mao, the Party, and the Peasant Question, 1962-1966"; "Reform and Reaction in Post-Mao China: The Road to Tiananmen"; and, "Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping". He is the presenter of the Great Courses video lecture series "The Rise of Modern China", published by the Teaching Company.