Cities in Motion

"[This is a] collection of excellent studies on movement and flow in China's urban networks. The volume can just as easily be praised for displaying the richness with which spatial questions are now being explored by China scholars. Furthermore, the book makes an excellent pedagogical resource by inviting students to ask important questions about "the spatial approach" to Chinese history."—Tim Oakes, University of Colorado, Boulder, The China Journal, no. 61 (January 2009): 155–157

"This is a bold and fascinating collection of essays by a group of distinguished authors who work in different areas of modern Chinese history. The themes that join their work together are movement and migration. The volume makes a strong and direct recognition of the key role of migration, in all its forms, in modern Chinese history."—Diana Lary, China Review International 17, no. 4 (2010): 421–424

"This volume builds usefully upon the expanding literature on Chinese urban environments and their many linkages, enriching the subject by providing new sets of details and intriguing avenues of inquiry. The editors' introduction also adequately surveys the relevant features of this historiography. As such, the collection enhances the scholarly understanding of Chinese society at large."—Bill Sewell, Saint Mary's University, Pacific Affairs 81, no. 2 (Summer 2008): 267–269

“[A] chief inspiration for the anthology is the notion of motion, not in the sense of activity within the city (although that certainly is featured in some articles), but rather in the motion of ideas between and across urban settings throughout China….The articles in the book demonstrate the permeability of regional and national borders in China’s late-Imperial- and Republican-era transformations. ‘Motion’, therefore, often seems a rather more important term than ‘cities’ in many of the chapters….The work does definitely belong on the bookshelf of those interested in modern China.”—Johnathan Farris, Savannah College of Art and Design in Hong Kong, Planning Perspectives 26, no. 3 (July 2011): 505–507