Ching Kwan Lee is professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
"Ching Kwan Lee's The Specter of Global China is the first
book-length attempt to systematically consider the
broadertheoretical implications of China-Africa relations. . . . In
centering 'capital', Lee's book provides an important starting
point."-- "Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute"
"Ching Kwan Lee has written a captivating ethnographic study
comparing the behaviour of Chinese state capital and global private
capital in Zambia. By looking at the activities of Chinese state
capital in both the copper mining and construction sectors, Lee's
field research creates a window at the grassroots level into the
China-Zambia relationship. She weaves the worldviews of dozens of
Zambians and Chinese into an accessible narrative that helps bridge
the divide between different actors' perspectives. This book is a
lesson to all scholars, myself included, on the value of
perseverance and chutzpa in academic field research."--Joshua
Eisenman "Pacific Affairs"
"The Specter of Global China engages with substantial theoretical
questions at the center of the nature of capitalism as a system. It
is not a book exclusively for students of China in Africa; its
theoretical and empirical engagement with enduring questions in the
social sciences make it an important contribution to all those
interested in the theory and practice of development."-- "Edward
Webster, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg"
"[A] masterful deployment of the global ethnographic method as a
tool for rigorous conjunctural analysis. . . . The Specter of
Global China will undoubtedly appeal to geographical political
economists, critical resource geographers, Asia and Africa
scholars, and economic sociologists who wish to understand the
contemporary moment of economic restructuring, particularly as it
unfolds in a non-North Atlantic setting."-- "Antipode"
"Lee has produced another pioneering treatise on China. With Zambia
as her field site, she contrasts Chinese state investment with
competing footloose private capital from other countries, thereby
refuting mythologies of Chinese colonialism or world hegemony. Her
novel political economy based on 'varieties of capital' displaces
more conventional theories of 'varieties of capitalism' to reveal a
startling contingency to global capitalism. Sure to be an
unforgettable classic, The Specter of Global China represents the
very best of historical and comparative ethnography."-- "Michael
Burawoy, University of California at Berkeley"
"Rejecting simplistic depictions of Chinese investment in Africa as
inevitably 'imperialistic' and 'exploitative, ' The Specter of
Global China paints a richly nuanced portrait based on extensive
ethnographic fieldwork in Zambian copper mines and construction
sites. Lee makes a compelling case for the benefits of placing the
study of China's political economy in global perspective."--
"Elizabeth J. Perry, Harvard University"
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