Situated in one coastal city, Dalian, in Northern China, this book reports an ethnographic study of China's emerging “talent markets”—job searching, recruitment, matching employers with prospective employees, and the formation of career paths of young professionals. As China has undergone great transformation in the last three decades, labor markets are arguably one of the areas that were most susceptible to market forces, with the state sector shrinking and higher pay and alternative jobs luring talent into the market sectors.

While the presence of talent markets may seem mundane in market societies, Hoffman examines the rise of such markets in China with a distinctive analytical lens—the so-called “governmentality perspective” (Chapter 1), which develops “an inquiry into how modes of power and normative practices help produce the professional choosing subject” (p. 12). From this perspective, individual choices in job markets, professional values, and norms are not merely manifestations of market mechanisms; rather, as Hoffman argues, “job choice may be analyzed as part of power relations, a mechanism of regulation, a device deployed to help encourage college graduates to be self-enterprising individuals…” (pp. 12–13). In this light, then, fairly routine behaviors, such as choosing between alternatives or seeking new venues of information, constitute a regime of governing, with significance for understanding the neoliberal projects of the post-socialist state, which include the use of markets as part of more “efficient” forms of governance.

The subsequent chapters are organized around this main theme. Chapter 2 takes the reader into the research setting—the urban space in Dalian—and surveys the physical, social, and human (talent) aspects of the city, as well as the production of urban spaces historically and in light of the contemporary era of transformation. Chapter 3 focuses on the development of talent markets in the post-Mao era, with the shift from the traditional government “assignment system” in the planned economy to the new and evolving labor markets involving recruitment, consulting guidance, and choices between alternatives. Hoffman argues that, along with these market practices, there emerge new technologies of self in the forms of choice, autonomy, and the new self. She traces the role of universities in reforming the institutions of admission and curriculum and linking students to labor markets. While all these changes are commonly seen as part of a marketization processes, Hoffman insists on a different interpretation: they are mechanisms of governing in late-socialist urban China, resulting from the incorporation of neoliberal technologies of governing into socialist politics.

Chapter 4 develops the core idea and presents evidence on “patriotic professionalism.” Hoffman uses ethnographic evidence, drawn from young professionals' narratives about employment, self-development, and career planning, to argue that “the very act of choosing was not a natural pre-existing state of the self but rather a cultivated form of personhood” (p. 82). “In the young professionals' narratives, we learn how autonomously made decisions reflected a sense of responsibility not just to self-advancement but also to the nation” (p. 83). Again, Hoffman sees here a combination of neoliberal technologies of market choices and an ethnos and politics of national duty through labor (socialism) (p. 84). Hoffman cites a series of “quotes” from her interviewees as the evidence for “narratives of patriotism and professionalism.” These quotes are believable, but I wonder how systematic, indeed how effective, such state-promoted “patriotic professionalism” is. In what ways can we distinguish, or see the connections between, such official rhetoric and action?

The subsequent two chapters expand into much broader arenas of labor markets: the commodification of talent and gender-based division of labor within the family. The tales and issues discussed here are interesting, but their relevance to the governmentality arguments seems loose and stretched. For example, Hoffman's discussion of educational qualification leads to some general conclusions on “the naturalization of class” (pp. 118–120) without any discussion of the criteria she employs to analyze class.

There are provocative, refreshing ideas in this book, some of which are especially sensible and fitting in light of recent political tightening by the post-socialist state in China. But I have to admit that, even with some familiarity with the context of this study, I had a difficult time following the arguments and presentation in this book. Partly, this is because of my unfamiliarity with the intellectual context in which Hoffman situated her study. One needs to learn a new vocabulary, a new perspective to get into this mode of thinking and sensemaking. Partly this is because the topics range widely, from career choices to employers of various kinds to gender-based division of labor to the formation of new classes. In so doing, this study raises more questions than it answers: Are the practices that are observed in China's talent markets the conscious choices of the state? To what extent is the rhetoric of patriotic professionalism symbolic or action oriented? One cannot but wish that the author had provided more careful discussion and systematic evidence on these issues.