Recommended by Adam Tooze on the Foreign Policy’s Summer Reading List
Foreign Policy | July 2, 2021
The Wire China's book recommendations for the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party
The Wire, China | 29 August, 2021
"Arguably the most crucial in flection point in the history of the CCP was not its victory in the civil war, or Mao’s socialist revolution that followed, but what happened after Mao died and the nation transitioned toward market economics under Deng Xiaoping. Most history books portray that as a sudden sea-change in approach, but Isabella Weber’s insightful study lifts the lid on the internal debate that took place over how quickly or slowly to open up the economy." Alec Ash, books editor for The Wire China
Review by Carl Riskin in China Quarterly
China Quarterly | July 16, 2021
“Weber presents an exceedingly thorough, nuanced and even exciting account of the debate, which was fluid and constantly changing. The reader feels immersed in its day-to-day flow and even though the outcome is known, Weber instils a sense of suspense about what would happen in the end”
Joel Andreas - Paths Not Taken
New Left Review | July/Aug, 2021
“The detailed analysis of the 1980s market-reform debates offered by How China Escaped Shock Therapy is insightful and illuminating, and Weber’s evidence for the roles played by economists in providing theories and policy suggestions to key party leaders is especially helpful”
Recommended by James K. Galbraith at Project Syndicate
Project Syndicate | 17 Nov, 2020
“This is a great work of economics and history... Weber shows how close the Chinese came in the 1980s to taking the catastrophic Russian path, and documents how and why they chose gradualism with price and exchange controls instead – a decision that was essential to the country’s rise.”
How China escaped, and Eastern Europe was felled by, the Volcker shock by Branko Milanovic
Branko Milanović GLineQ | 1 June, 2021
“In an excellent book “How China Escaped Shock Therapy” at whose launch I was one of the discussants (together with Jamie Galbraith and Bin Wong) Isabella Weber discusses, among other things, how China escaped shock therapy and the Big Bang, and created, or stumbled upon, its own way to economic growth.”
Quand la Chine évitait la « thérapie de choc ». A review by Romaric Godin
Mediapart France | 11 June, 2021
Avoiding the Post-Communist Traps. A review by Zoltán Pogátsa
Visegrad / Insight | 25 June, 2021
“The Chinese Economic Miracle was Based on Ignoring Advice from Central and Eastern Europe… China escaped shock therapy, as the title of Weber’s book underlines. Liberalisation took place, not in a single Big Bang, but gradually, over a period of decades, as Weber demonstrates.”
Pragmatism as Policy. A review by Umair Javed Dawn, Pakistan
Dawn.com | 9 Aug, 2021
““An excellent book by political economist Isabella Weber, titled How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate provides an intellectual history of how China steered through the post-Mao period by undertaking a series of reforms that eventually set the stage for rapid economic growth witnessed during the preceding two decades. At the core of Weber’s documentation is the role of ideas and how key policymakers are influenced by competing notions of pragmatism, tradition, and theory.”
D说(355)：从经济改革去看中国
ChineseCanadianVoice.ca | 7 June, 2021
“Seeing a Westerner discuss China’s reforms, I did not have high hopes as someone who grew up in China’s reform era. But once I started reading Isabella Weber’s new book How China Escaped Shock Therapy it was hard to put it down. The book provides a unique perspective, is novel and objective. … I strongly recommend it.”
China and the Lure of Global Capitalism. A review by Macabe Keliher
Boston Review | 17 July, 2021