Rozman is not unaware of potential objections to his argument and responds to those that highlight state top-down control and censorship, as well as those stressing the exis- tence of alternative viewpoints on national identity as differing from those imposed by the state. He also tries to engage with those cautioning against overestimating structural iden- tity factors at the expense of the rapidly changing factors of political contexts and leader- ship. He constructs a dynamic national identity framework that incorporates structural as well as political factors. Herein lies the danger of subsuming alternative explanations under one master explanation, thereby making the developed framework unassailable. It might have been more helpful to highlight the theoretical contribution by formulating empirical questions not answered by critics of the identity argument. Besides, the impor- tant objections to Rozman’ s argument may come from rationalists who insist that Russia and China’ s interests are incompatible and maintain that interests, not identity, drive re- lations and alliances in world politics. The book’ s concluding pages briefly consider such rationalist arguments, yet such arguments deserve to be strongly engaged throughout. On the other hand, the importance of communism in Russia and China’ s identities runs the risk of being overstated at the expense of their Confucian and Sinocentric or tsarist and Russocentric views that were formed over centuries, not during a decades-long experience. In a number of respects, communism and communist ideology are secondary to the two nations’ imperial experience, which explains their differences regarding adopted communist models. The point of differences between China and Russia’ s nation- al identities is not central to the book’ s argument, yet deserves to be highlighted. The two nations diverge in their experiences with the West, world status over the last three cen- turies, international outlook, ideology, (quasi) religious tradition, degree of moderniza- tion, and other respects. In addition to interest-based considerations, these historical and cultural factors will continue to complicate China and Russia’ s strategic partnership. These criticisms notwithstanding, The Sino-Russian Challenge to the World Order is an excellent contribution to the discussion of Russia-China relations and their implication for a future world order. The central argument is clear and important, and will influence understanding of the issue by scholars and practitioners alike. The book will also be useful in graduate and upper-division undergraduate courses devoted to these subjects. ANDREI P. TSYGANKOV San Francisco State University andrei@sfsu.edu CHINA Opera and the City: The Politics of Culture in Beijing, 1770–1900. By ANDREA S. GOLDMAN. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2012. xx, 365 pp. $55.00 (cloth); $24.95 (paper); $24.95 (e-book). doi:10.1017/S0021911815000704 In Opera and the City , Andrea Goldman provides a rich history of the diverse forms of opera that ruled the Beijing stage from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. Goldman draws upon an impressive range of sources in order to complicate the simplistic “rise and fall” narrative in which Kunqu opera gave way to the nascent 732 The Journal of Asian Studies