Anthropologist Shao-Hua Liu has put together a highly readable and interesting analysis of the Nuosu community in Limu Township of Zhaojue County in Sichuan's Liangshan Prefecture (population four million; 60,000 square kilometres). It investigates, among other things, heroin use and HIV infection, which in recent times has spread quickly throughout all of Liangshan's 16 counties. Limu Township, an impoverished mountainous community (sitting at a height of 1,900 metres), was identified by the district and township governments as an early rural HIV hotspot (about 1.9 per cent prevalence in 2005 [p. 11]). As such, it has been at the frontline of China's battle with HIV/AIDS and the lessons from its recent experience are important. Liu investigates the reasons behind the failure of some of the policies introduced in Limu and discusses more generally the “rites of passage” experienced by Nuosu youth as they migrate to cities and engage in drug use.

Liu's account is based upon extensive fieldwork in the region. Liu first visited Limu in 2002 (as a graduate student), followed by further visits in 2003 and 2004 before returning for a “fruitful yet heart-wrenching” year in 2005 (p. 196). She undertook detailed interviews with 56 people, including drug users, dealers and local officials and outlines her work in six chapters. As an anthropologist, she draws extensively from the accounts of “key informants.” From this she develops six chapters. The first two chapters present background on Liangshan's development, including the impact of national development policies and “modernity” and the growing problem of youth migration. The second chapter looks at the “rites of passage” for the marginalized youth of Limu, as well as the increasing use of drugs by them. The third and fourth chapters look at the response of Limu's community leaders to the growing problem of heroin use, as well as the way in which the state has undermined these approaches. The different experiences of four brothers are looked at to illustrate the limitations of kinship solidarity. The next two chapters provide more insights into the failings of state policy, by looking at the China–UK HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Project as well as the problem of stigmatization – encouraged by the very state policies designed to reduce such stigmatization.

Who or what has been responsible for the devastating HIV outbreak on the Nuosu? Liu argues drug consumption and youth migration to cities have fuelled the epidemic. Drug use, she suggests, is part of an attempt to “claim a part in China's blossoming modernity” (p. 20). More importantly, the movement towards a market economy has been coupled with the “intrusion” and “inadequacy of state practices.” She argues these have contributed in important ways towards the problem and she focuses considerably upon these. The lack of sensitivity to local practices and customs by state policy, she argues, has been far from adequate. She describes how the “reckless leap into global modernity” has been met with a “chaotic patchwork of intervention efforts” (p. 197). The lives and activities of the local population, she suggests, have “continually been hindered by external forces” (p. 196). She argues that if the state were “to change its problematic practices during local crises and provide proper inducements,” the social activism of the Nuosu could also be revived – and more successful outcomes achieved. Successful policy action, she suggests, should not involve changing the local people but instead changing “the state agents' attitudes and provide them with proper training in regard to local culture and economic conditions” (p. 196). Liu is therefore highly critical of the recent efforts of policy-makers to address the HIV/AIDS problem in Limu.

While not everyone will agree with these arguments, and some may place the part of individual agency higher up on the list of factors leading to HIV infection, this book is far more than an account of Limu's drug use and HIV problem. It provides great insights into the lives of the Nuosu and the political, economic and social forces shaping their existence. It also does so through the very vivid life stories of the key informants that it uses. This also makes it an insightful and useful text for those with a more general interest in contemporary Chinese society and development. For many students of contemporary China, I suspect, the stories of the key informants will be as interesting as the critiques of government policy and the insights into drug use and community action. Coupled with a fluid and readable writing style, this makes it a valuable contribution to the fields of Chinese studies and anthropology. I suspect it will be used by undergraduate and postgraduate students of both. As with many good books, Liu's study raises a number of further questions for the engaged reader, and we come away with a desire to know even more about the Nuosu, the current problems they face in Limu and what the future holds for the general population of Liangshan Prefecture.