Twenty-seven years after getting connected to the internet, China has turned from a complete novice taking baby steps into a digital giant that not only boasts the largest number of internet users in the world, but leads innovations in technological development, business models, civil engagement, and government surveillance. While the internet profoundly transformed Chinese society, Chinese netizens have also actively and significantly shaped the digital sphere through their creative practices. Shaohua Guo's The Evolution of the Chinese Internet unpacks the driving force behind the vitality of Chinese digital culture by investigating four of China's most important online platforms in the past two decades—the bulletin board system (BBS), the blog, the microblog (Weibo), and WeChat (Weixin)—and revealing “the dynamic process of negotiation, collaboration, and contestation enacted by the interplay of diverse agents, including the state, cultural institutions, commercial entities, and Internet users” (p. 4). In this, Guo presents a compelling cultural history of the Chinese Internet that shifted from celebrating idealism and egalitarianism to embracing pragmatism and entrepreneurship.

While joining recent scholars who strive to move beyond the stereotypical antagonism between the state and the netizens underlying the early studies of the Chinese internet, Guo embarks on a much more ambitious project—mapping the evolution of the ecosystem of China's digital sphere since its birth, which involved active participation by multiple parties. Guo's investigation of such a sweeping scope is backed up by almost twenty years of engagement with the Chinese internet, meticulous accounting of changes in both the technological and the human infrastructure, personal interviews with key players in digital China, and nuanced textual and discursive analyses. Though she assumes a daunting task, Guo handles the mountains of information gracefully and offers a concise, clearly structured, and captivating account that offers a historical bird's-eye view of China's ever-changing digital sphere, as well as its key moments and events.

Building on an analytical framework of “the network of visibility” that incorporates the competition for attention and the competition for content authority (introduction), the book walks the readers through the “Bildungsroman” of the four predominant online platforms (chapter 2); the comic spirit at the center of Chinese internet culture that was born with the BBS (chapter 3); the success stories of four cultural-celebrities-turned-entrepreneurs who use interactive blogging to maximize transmedia opportunities (chapter 4); the provocative blogs by two taboo breakers that expanded the online discursive parameters (chapter 5); six Weibo-based incidents that highlight the impact of digital witnessing on citizen activism and reinvention of state propaganda (chapter 6); and the rise and fall of a popular WeChat public account that reflects the revolution of content production, distribution, and commodification in the era of mobile applications (chapter 7).

Although the book does not discuss them systematically, it offers important insights on the issues of performativity, style, and class in China's digital sphere. For example, performativity is key to the virtual carnival over Furong Jiejie in the BBS era—both Furong Jiejie and her mock fans indulged in exaggerated performance. Later, while the female celebrity bloggers all assume the image of “intellectual women” who are “intelligent, successful, and nonthreatening” (p. 116), both Papi Jiang on Weibo and Mi Meng on WeChat engage in performative self-depreciation and self-mockery. Style also plays a crucial role in the popularity of Han Han's blog (fragmented, witty, and satiric) and the reinvention of state propaganda on Weibo (informal, brief, and playful). Relatedly, while the Chinese internet started off as the elite's sport, the heyday of the blog coincided with the rapid growth of China's middle class. By the time Weibo and WeChat came along, populist and anti-elitist sentiments started to rise on the internet, which coincided with the state's intensified push for nationalism.

While the book does a great job of chronicling the developmental milestones of the Chinese internet, its selected case studies may lead to some unintended impressions. For example, women's stories significantly outnumber those of men. It is unclear what it means for Chinese digital culture and Chinese society if this gender imbalance is real. Also, the chapters, each focusing on one platform, appear relatively disconnected with one another, which, under the umbrella of “evolution,” gives the impression that the latecomers replaced their predecessors. However, although the BBS and the blog are no longer as popular, they still exist and command massive user participation. The book may do the readers a favor by recognizing the coexistence of all these platforms and explicating the varied topography of the Chinese internet. The book mentions the segmented nature of the public sphere in WeChat a few times but does not elaborate on it. It may be worth emphasizing how this feature significantly differs from the openness and inclusiveness of its predecessors, especially the BBS and the blog, and how it reflects and affects the overall compartmentalization of China's social life and public opinions.

All in all, this book is a treat for anyone interested in or curious about the Chinese internet, contemporary Chinese popular culture and cultural history, or digital media and culture in general. It is a must-read for students and researchers of modern China. Its jargon-free style also makes it accessible to the general public.