THE CHINA JOURNAL, No. 63 210 on organizational networks, without much analysis or evidence. The book’s main contribution is clearly to an exploration of the features of Chinese environmental activism, and it would have been more thoughtful if it had stayed away from generalized commentary on Western counterparts. Xie’s conclusion, that both the “embryonic” stage of development and local culture matter to the strong reliance on personal networks, seems contradictory in itself. If culture matters, should such reliance be regarded as “embryonic” at all? Such language suggests that the author accepts the linear developmental model of activism, from informal nature based on personal network to formality based on organizational network, as social movement theories advocate. Nevertheless, the book offers very interesting and rich empirical analyses. The details of case studies contribute to our understanding of how environmental activism works in China. Xie’s careful discussion also reminds us of the challenges of establishing straightforward and generalizable causal relationships when studying a country as diverse as China. Miwa Hirono The University of Nottingham China and Postsocialist Anthropology: Theorizing Power and Society after Communism, by Andrew Kipnis. Norwalk: EastBridge, 2008. viii + 256 pp. US$29.95 (paperback). Andrew Kipnis aims with this collection of essays to make a major theoretical statement—the “postsocialist” in the title is meant not primarily to refer to post- 1989 former or reformed “actually existing socialist” societies, or even the post- 1989 era in general, but rather to a theoretical position in the same sense as the term “postcolonialism”. Kipnis argues that, just as postcolonial scholars have laid out a series of critiques meant to reveal and challenge the assumptions which undergirded not only the original colonial enterprise but also much of the dominant thinking in and out of the academy today, so too do we need a similar critique and assessment with regard to the history and ideology of socialism. But while the scholars of today tirelessly attack the injustices of colonialism and slavery, Kipnis holds that they have been much more reticent to acknowledge that the socialist project was a disaster with a human toll unmatched in the twentieth century, characterized by mass starvation, totalitarian political control and widespread violent political persecution and murder. In spite of this grim history, much of Western social science, and particularly anthropology, is still even to this day pervaded by unreflected-upon socialist and Marxist assumptions. Contrary to the claims of “apologists for actually existing socialism” (p. 9), Kipnis argues, the disasters of socialist governance were not caused by distortions or perversions of Marxism, but were the logical outcome of the core tenets of Marxism itself. This book aims to expose and critique what he takes to be the key logics of