Edited by V. V. Mikheev, Moscow: Moscow Carnegie Center, 2005. 646 p. A remarkably bright phenomenon has emerged in the methodologically and conceptually rather dim horizon of modern Russian Genre studies. This impression was confirmed in my mind after I turned the last page of the reviewed monograph, which in its content and pathos is very different from most of what many Russian experts on modern China write and publish. This difference lies in an unambiguous critical attitude not just to "individual shortcomings" in the context of" general successes", as some domestic Sinologists do, but in a consistent systematic criticism of the model of socio-economic and political development of a reforming China at the present stage. Moreover, this criticism comes from the standpoint of economic liberalism and political democracy, which is not at all typical of the Russian Sinological community. Specialists, and not only that, are well aware that a huge mass of scientific and popular works about modern China, published in the last decade in our country, suffers, to put it mildly, dizziness from "Chinese success". A lot of similar directions lie- Authors: N. V. Andreeva, G. V. Belokurova, Ya. M. Berger, O. N. Borokh, P. S. Vinokurov, P. B. Kamennov, A.V. Lomanov, V. V. Mikheev, M. A. Potapov, O. V. Pochagina, V. B. Yakubovsky. page 209 Our Western colleagues, Sinologists, also publish a lot of literature. However, there the "pathos of delight" is balanced by sharp critical speeches, both scientific and journalistic, coming from the lips of not only right - wing and liberal, but often also left-wing movements, outraged by the realities of the corrupt and partocratic regime in Beijing. I will quote, for example, the statement of a great expert on China, American political scientist Lucien Pai: "We should be more careful in assessing the immediate consequences of the actions of Chinese leaders and the results of their inter-factional struggle. One can, however, be more specific ... Read more