Class in Contemporary China

Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2015

"Class in Contemporary China has done a noble job in what is an extremely complicated and diffused subject. Goodman has managed to piece together a survey of disparate understandings of class and bring them into a coherent portrait, taking the studies and analysing them in detail. It is an absorbing look, given the tremendous change in China that is also changing the world."
LSE Review of Books

"Goodman has an eagle eye for what is crucial in China's development. His analysis of the important but under-appreciated role of class and class analysis in modern China should be mandatory reading. The book provides a vital contribution to our understanding of continuity and change in China."
Anthony Saich, Harvard Kennedy School

"Class is at the basis of the Chinese Communist revolution, yet today's China is a world away from the class-based politics of the Mao era. In this highly readable and meticulously researched book, David Goodman gives readers a powerful account of what precisely class means in today's China and why it matters. From the emergent middle class to the new classes that make up China's working population, the analysis gives detail that reveals just how complex class has become. The book brings together Goodman's interdisciplinary skills as a historian and political scientist, and it draws from the latest cutting-edge data from within China itself. On a crucial issue shaping China in the twenty-first century, this is a must-read book."
Rana Mitter, University China Centre, University of Oxford

"David Goodman provides a comprehensive and admirably succinct overview of a complex subject with a voluminous literature. This excellent book provides all the tools needed to contextualise and analyse these changes, including a concise theoretical discussion, an overview of class under Mao and, during the reform era, an analysis of the dominant, middle and subordinate classes and a thoughtful discussion about class and the growing economic inequalities in China. I highly recommend it to students and scholars of contemporary Chinese economics, politics and society."
Political Studies Review

"This book combines a complete picture of the class structure in twentieth-century China, an analysis of the social effects of thirty years of economic reforms that created a socialist market economy, an evaluation of the ongoing political effects of the restructuring of Chinese society, and a general contribution to the theory of social class and social change. […] The book certainly represents a useful work tool for the newcomer who wants to understand the foundations of the structure and dynamics of class relations in China; but this remarkable overview is above all indispensable reading for those who wish to break with methodological nationalism and to internationalize the sociological discussion of social class."
Lectures