In this ambitious book Xiaobing Li sets out to chronicle the history of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) from its inception to 2004 when President Hu Jintao took over as the Chair of the Central Military Commission. As his central theme, Li focuses on military modernization and provides a survey of how the PLA's combat experiences – as well as social, political and economic changes in Chinese society – have shaped the Chinese military as an institution. He discusses both broad institutional changes as well as the personal experiences of individual soldiers and officers of the PLA. The book is very well researched and is a valuable addition to the growing literature on the PLA that will appeal to both specialists and general readers.

The book is organized chronologically. Chapters one and two provide historical context by looking at the history of armies, peasants and rebellion in China, and the formative years of the Red Army during the Chinese revolution. In chapter three, Li examines the impact of the Korean War on the PLA and how the experience of fighting American forces shaped PLA attitudes toward military modernization. Chapter four chronicles the impact of Soviet advisors on the PLA in the 1950s, institutional change within the PLA, and 1954–55 Taiwan Strait Crisis. This section is especially rich, drawing on interviews and scarce Chinese-language material to present data from both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Chapter five provides a discussion of China's nuclear weapons programme. Chapter six covers the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis, the rise of Lin Biao, and the 1962 Sino-Indian War. Chapter seven covers the role of the PLA in Vietnam from 1946–70, the Sino-Soviet border dispute 1969–72, and the fall of Lin Biao in 1971. Chapter eight covers the military reforms of Deng Xiaoping and discusses China's 1979 attack on Vietnam and the subsequent years of fighting along the Sino-Vietnamese border. Chapter nine covers the reforms that took place under Jiang Zemin and the impact of the 1995–96 Taiwan Strait crisis.

Li's treatment of the PLA is very much a survey and not a comprehensive study. Readers looking for an extensive analysis of the impact of the Cultural Revolution on the PLA or a detailed discussion of military reform in the 1980s will be disappointed. Similarly, Li deals with the impact of urbanization and globalization in only a few pages. This is the chief weakness of the book, in order to cover several decades; the discussion inevitably treats some issues too cursorily.

That said, the book is a success in several ways. Firstly, it provides a very good overview of just how much the PLA has changed as an institution over the past 50 years, documenting changes in its military capabilities, educational levels of its officers and the social composition of its personnel. Second, Li does a superb job of using Chinese-language sources. There is a wealth of material in this book from central Party documents, provincial archives, memoirs and official PLA histories. Some of this material is not available in English elsewhere and Li has done a valuable service to the field by including it in this book. Third, unlike other books on the PLA, Li uses interviews with PLA veterans to bring out the personal experiences of ordinary service men and women. For example, the book brings out what it was like to serve in Tibet in the early 1960s, or be stationed in North Vietnam during the American bombing campaign. Fourth, Li, who served in the PLA, provides a Chinese perspective on the PLA's history which complements the existing English-language literature which is mostly written by Western scholars.

Overall, the book is an excellent addition to the literature. For non-specialists, it is a good general introduction to the military history of the PRC and the PLA as an institution. It provides access to information from memoirs and archival material that is not available in other English-language books on the PLA, and is more up to date than other general studies on the PLA. The book would be very suitable for college-level courses as a supplementary text. The book is very readable and the sections on the Korean and Vietnamese conflicts would be especially interesting for students in a general course on modern East Asian history. This is also a book for specialists who will greatly benefit from the rich bibliography and appreciate Professor Li's efforts to bring out the personal stories of PLA soldiers.