Kevin Carrico's book The Great Han examines the ideologies of racial nationalism and neotraditionalism expressed in the Han Clothing Movement, which has emerged online and in several Chinese cities since the early 2000s. Members of this movement believe that for thousands of years China was everything that, today, it is not: a unified, orderly land of purity and honesty whose (Han) inhabitants led healthy, purposeful lives under the guidance of wise, benevolent leaders and were capable, both individually and collectively, of superhuman feats and creative genius. China has fallen hard from this state of grace, they say, due not to its pursuit of modernity but to its victimization by a barbarian race—the Manchus—that once subjugated China and that has, since 1978, infiltrated the government with the sole aim of eradicating the Han. Their goal is to transform China by revitalizing Chinese tradition; their means, to wear “Han clothing”—a style that, they claim, remained unchanged from the moment the Yellow Emperor invented clothing until the Qing conquest in 1644—at festivals and rituals, on outings to parks and museums, and, sometimes, as they go about their daily business fixing computers or answering phones.

In Carrico's analysis, this attempt to actualize a utopian vision of past greatness and the conspiracy theorizing that accompanies it are products of the structure of nationalist identification, which hinges on the gap between the ideal and the real. Adopting Lacan's notion of the imaginary, Carrico argues that nationalism arouses intense individual passions because it is an externalization of personal desires for security, freedom, belonging, and transcendence. Institutionalized through ubiquitous symbols and narratives, nationalism presents a fantastical image of the nation that promises to fulfill those desires. But actual nations inevitably fail to do so. Thus nationalist yearning is the yearning for a stable, secure self, and is fueled by its perpetual frustration in a fast-changing, insecure world.

The paradox at the heart of this framework is key to the structure of The Great Han. In each chapter, Carrico explores the paradoxes of the Han Clothing Movement. Chapter 2 shows how, by asserting Han superiority, the movement rejects the state's ideology of multi-ethnic equality, even while it depends on the ethnic logic that underpins that ideology, whereby ethnic dress and performance express the unity and stability of the collective self. Chapter 3 argues that the movement's appeal to collective ideas (tradition, culture, nation) serves to legitimize the personal desires and anxieties of individual participants, most of whom are twenty-somethings marginalized by China's rapid socioeconomic changes. Chapter 4 focuses on clothing, ritual, and photography as the media through which Han Clothing enthusiasts give real-world materiality to their fantasy of the “real China,” even as these media are carefully staged to seclude participants from the real world. Chapter 5 traces the “us-versus-them” logic of both identity thinking and conspiracy theorizing, and suggests that while conspiracy theories may provide individuals with an empowering sense of a stable, homogeneous self, they are ultimately delusional and thus disempowering. And chapter 6 visits a “ladies’ academy,” where the all-male teaching staff expounds the need to control women's sexuality and self-presentation lest their duplicity and impurity lead to the extinction of the Han race—a familiar nationalist narrative that invests women with immense power while stripping them of any agency.

The book raises important questions about nationalism, identity, modernity, nostalgia, social movements, and power in contemporary China. By locating the roots of this movement in the structure of nationalism, Carrico usefully opens the door to comparisons with neotraditionalist movements elsewhere. At the same time, the stories he tells about his informants—such as “Brother Emperor,” who styles himself a descendant of Nüwa (the goddess who created humanity) and plans to save the Chinese race by copyrighting the image of the Yellow Emperor and building a global fashion brand—provide poignant glimpses into how ideas and experiences of kinship, markets, and history inform imaginaries of power and powerlessness in China today.

However, the conceptual framing leaves many questions unanswered. The psychoanalytic approach does not explain why only some citizens respond to the disenchantments of daily life by espousing such fringe views. Carrico seems to suggest that democratic systems are less prone to propagating ideal images of the nation than nondemocratic systems, but he does not draw out the implications for his argument. The focus on participants’ unconscious motivations elides any serious discussion of the social in this social movement, and precludes any attempt to understand how participants themselves view their actions. The movement's loose structure seems to allow for a wide range of motivations and levels of engagement. What are the dynamics among group members, and how do they shape the movement's direction, its impact on the lives of its members, and the urban cultures it is part of? What are we to make of the fact that some participants idealize not just the ancient past but the Maoist past as well? Or that a graduate of the “ladies’ academy” asks for a certificate proving she is a “lady” so she can better compete on the marriage market? Such details beg for a more situated approach to understanding the appeal of the Han Clothing Movement, and the lives of a broad swath of young, educated, urban-dwelling Han who feel that their experiences do not add up to the privilege these adjectives convey.

Finally, as an anthropologist of China, I feel compelled to address Carrico's claim that contemporary anthropology and Chinese studies promote uncritical identification with romanticized ideas of China, and flirt with conspiracy thinking by blaming China's shortcomings on “the West.” I do not recognize this as an accurate portrayal of contemporary scholarship, and Carrico provides no examples to convince readers of its accuracy. Nonetheless, it is a reminder to reflect on our own work and to make sure, as Carrico does in the rest of the book, that our scholarship combines compassion, critique, and cognizance of what is at stake.