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Join Richard Baum, author of China Watcher
Monday, March 22 at 7 p.m.
Borders Bookstore
612 East Liberty St
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Tuesday, March 23 at noon
Room 1636 School of Social Work Bldg
1080 South University
University of Michigan
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.
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;
Prelude to Revolution; Reform and Reaction in Post-Mao China; and Burying Mao. He is the presenter of the Great Courses video lecture series
"The Fall and Rise of China," published by the Teaching Company.
PRAISE FOR CHINA WATCHER
"An enthralling memoir, and a fascinating
snapshot of recent China-U.S. relations, from the doyen of modern China
watchers." - Rob Gifford, former NPR Beijing correspondent and author
of China Road
"Richard Baum has given us a rare and intimate
gift: a wonderfully funny and revealing chronicle of adventure, as
experienced by one of the greatest China watchers of our time. Baum's
odyssey through four decades of China's rise reminds us that true
friendship to China requires not only patience, but honesty. As the
Chinese expression puts it, he has always dared to step off his horse
to examine the flowers up-close." - Evan Osnos, China correspondent for
The New Yorker
"Richard Baum has been watching China for decades
with a combination of bemusement, shock, awe, and smarts, and he has
instructed generations of China watchers. Now he's finally shared the
secrets of tea-leaf reading and produced a wonderful book that should
be must-reading for anyone interested in where China has come from and
where it's going." - John Pomfret, author of Chinese Lessons: Five
Classmates and the Story of the New China
"China Watcher is a
fascinating, vivid, and personally honest book that is revealing about
China itself and the efforts of outsiders to make sense of China's
policies and prospects. This book held my interest all the way
through." - James Fallows, national correspondent for the Atlantic
Monthly and author of Postcards from Tomorrow Square
"Rick
Baum combines a compelling tale of his own personal journey through
China's recent tumultuous history with fascinating portraits not only
of many of its key figures, but of the equally colorful cast of Western
academics, diplomats, journalists, and intelligence operatives, who,
like Baum, have long struggled to make sense of this huge and often
mystifying nation. An important slice of the China story you're
unlikely to find anywhere else." - Mike Chinoy, USC U.S.-China
Institute, former CNN Beijing bureau chief
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