“In China's booming economy of recent times,” the editors of Restless China inform us, “moneymaking and materialism have filled the space to become the most conspicuous public values and these values have been satisfying, but only up to a point” (p. 3). As this rich collection reveals, it is a point well taken.

Restless China is the third volume of a trilogy in which Link, Madsen, and Pickowicz have introduced the research of diverse scholars, both Western and Chinese, who study contemporary Chinese popular culture and society. Unofficial China (1989) inaugurated the series, bringing scholars from various disciplines together to analyze shifts in Chinese society and culture during the first decade of post-Mao reforms. In 2002, with Popular China, the same editors presented studies that explored rapidly increasing inequalities of that moment's new market economy, as well as topics related to private consumption, corruption, newly emerging identities, gay and lesbian lives in China, and more. In this latest work, the editors continue to provide timely insights but also sharpen the project's critical mission.

In Restless China, the editors explicitly focus on a “values vacuum” as the outcome of the “collapse of socialist ideals” in China (p. 3). This volume explores the causes, avenues, and answers (such as they are) seen in China today to the questions many Chinese people have raised and the fears that have accompanied this collapse. The volume is divided into four sections. The first, “Legacies,” details the ways in which present-day dislocations are, in part, consequences of the Mao era itself. While some may see the reformist or market-era China of today as a separate beast, the studies here show clear and convincing linkages between the Maoist decades of 1949–78 and the reform period that followed under Deng Xiaoping and his successors. In the next section, “A New Electronic Community,” readers learn about today's Internet culture in China, its effects on the Communist Party's control of information, and the emergence of new cyber-communities. In “Values,” we find studies exploring how ordinary people in China have sought refuge from the “moral confusion” of the present day through religious practice, individually or in groups, and through dating. Finally, in “Global Standards,” the volume concludes with three studies that analyze and evaluate the efforts of China's leaders to integrate Chinese institutions into world systems. One key aspect of this process is an ambition to “meet global standards,” and yet that ambition seems elusive for reasons that are all too clear. As the editors note, these last three studies provide a thematic thread that ties the volume together and serves as the culmination of the first three sections.

Indeed, these concluding essays underscore a critical question the editors raise in their introduction: “Will ‘moneymaking’ remain the dominant value, or will it be constrained and on occasion trumped by broader and more pressing ethical concerns?” (p. 8). In their essay “A Collapsing Natural Environment?” Su Xiaokang and Perry Link offer a thorough analysis, ominous in its implications and insightful in its theorization of social dimensions. Yunxiang Yan's study of food safety speaks volumes amid a crisis of “social trust” that surrounds the issue in China today (p. 262). Meanwhile, Hsiung Ping-chen's pointed exploration of Chinese universities provides a survey of domestic critiques and of Chinese institutions’ rich levels of funding, weak professional standards, party control, and scholarly corruption. The critical lens is thus brought full circle to those who are charged with creating knowledge in China itself.

In sum, Restless China contains high-quality essays and compelling analysis, backed by strong research. Among many excellent contributions, see Richard Madsen's essay investigating spiritual practice in today's “decentered” China, a work that raises powerful implications regarding its role in a global, twenty-first-century context. A number of essays in the volume also address public commentary and critique under an authoritarian party-state. Paul Pickowicz's “Political Humor in Post-Socialist China: Transnational and Still Funny” offers a prime starting point while also raising interesting methodological questions regarding humor as history. Perry Link and Xiao Qiang's essay, “From Grass-Mud Equestrians to Rights-Conscious Citizens: Language and Thought on the Chinese Internet” is a rich introduction to issues of digital media, cyber-language, and their political implications in China. Both sophisticated and accessible, and a document that provides an excellent introduction to key terminology, it is an essay worth recommending to every student of the subject. The volume presents a wealth of information on other topics ranging from dating practices, to media and consumption, blogs and fandom, cultures of “Red Capitalism,” and more. Restless China will appeal to scholars as well as nonspecialists, and also serve very well in the university classroom. We are fortunate to have the three volumes in this trilogy, which stand witness to the massive and complex changes China has undergone since the 1980s as well as their human realities. And if we are lucky, a fourth volume is already in the works.