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A fascinating, vivid, and personally honest book that is revealing about China itself and the efforts of outsiders to make sense of China's policies and prospects. -James Fallows, national correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly In his vivacious memoir, leading American Sinologist Richard Baum recalls a time when just getting your hands on an internal Party document was enough to launch a career. -New York Review of Books

Richard Baum's China Watcher offers us a distinctive view into China and the field of China watching... Many in the profession will find his journey familiar, yet even professionals will find the book engaging because he so openly and candidly shines a light on what it has meant to be a China hand over the past 40 years. -- Scott Kennedy Pacific Affairs This engaging, readable volume is a refreshing contrast to the tomes most China scholars produce. Choice In his vivacious memoir China Watcher, leading American Sinologist Richard Baum recalls a time when just getting your hands on an internal Party document was enough to launch a career... The New York Review of Books One thing that makes this book valuable is that is shows how, over the course of Baum's career, not only has China itself changed profoundly but so have the methods scholars use to make sense of it. Huffington Post What Baum does excellently in China Watcher is supply a wide-angle lens treatment to the major events of the past four decades, the sort of things only a person who was actually on the ground at the time can write about credibly. Imagine getting the fly-on-the-wall play-by-play half-an-hour before the recording of the Zapruder film, and you'll readily realize what I mean. CNReviews.com Being a smart-aleck got him in trouble in academic circles at times, but it has served his memoir well. It is rare to find a serious scholar who is able to write about his life's work with such levity. We witness not just his knowledge (and ours) about China grow, but also watch him coming of age. Mambo-Admin.com One suspects that many a stodgy China hand will publicly distain Baum's candid, colourful- often hilarious- retrospective. But they will clandestinely read this expose under the covers. South China Morning Post Baum charts the breathtaking changes of the past decades. Financial Times China Watcher offers the rare opportunity to learn this history as author Richard Baum did- from the front row... It is rare to find a serious scholar who is able to write about his life's work with such levity. We witness not just his knowledge (and our) about China grow, but also watch him coming of age... His measured optimism for the country and its relations with the rest of the world are all the more convincing for his exciting narrative about a long career of China watching. Zocalo Public Square A superb, engaging memoir. -- Gordon G. Chang The Wall Street Journal Asia In this fine memoir professor Richard Baum reminds us of many events, truths, themes and insanities over his four decades of visiting, studying and writing about China as an exceptionally well-traveled academic. He writes nicely, though not so slickly that you are made to wonder why he isn't struggling harder to understand China (he believes understanding China is a terrifying constant struggle, even for so-called experts), and he thinks deeply, though without the unnecessary density common to academic studies that have very little to say and- tragically- a whole of space in which to say it...the book is a wonderful way to get a handle on the current situation between China and the United States without losing your mind or your composure, or falling asleep. -- Tom Plate syndicated columnist

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Richard Baum was distinguished professor of political science at UCLA and director emeritus of the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies.

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