© Columbia University Press
China's Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead
Paper, 320 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-13085-1
$26.50
/ £18.50
March, 2004
Cloth, 320 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-13084-4
$77.50
/ £53.50
"Although the author speaks to his immediate audience of China specialists such as himself, his prose is accessible to anyone wishing to study contemporary China in a serious way." — Booklist
"This book is an optimistic prediction from a journalist with more than a decade's experience reporting for the Far Eastern Economic Review . . . this book is an important contribution to the debate about China's future." — Publishers Weekly
"Bruce Gilley, a China hand for more than a decade, puts forward the provocative hypothesis in China's Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead that within the next few decades, perhaps as early as 2010, China will become a democracy. He is in good company. Deng Xiaoping promised a democracy by 2035." — Sandip Roy, San Francisco Chronicle
"For one vivid glimpse of the future, you can turn to Bruce Gilley's China's Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead, which lays out a thoughtful, unusually detailed scenario for democratic change in the coming years." — Baltimore Sun
"China seems out of sight, out of mind. Gilley reminds us that this is a monumental mistake. . . . He leaves no doubt that for the Chinese Communist Party the end of days is rapidly approaching." — James Harding, Washington Post
"China's Democratic Future is a very smart and provocative book, as well as a tour ofancien regime China before it becomes ancien." — Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Review of Books
"China's Democratic Future evinces careful research, clear writing, and a deep knowledge of China. . . . His work is worthy of the best in Chinese geomancy." — Richard Halloran, Far Eastern Economic Review
"A deep knowledge of China...his work is worthy of the best in Chinese geomancy" — Richard Halloran, Topics
"China's Democratic Future is an often thought-provoking work of political futurology...The first thing to praise is the bold, normative vision of the book...Gilley has done us a service." — Stephen Green, International Affairs
"China's Democratic Future is a provocative, engaging, and serious book previewing what may become one of the major political events of teh twenty-first century." — Merle Goldman, Journal of Democracy
"China is stirring, and Bruce Gilley has insightfully identified the evolving plot." — Billy O. Wireman, Charlotte Observer
"The book is an enjoyable and thought-provoking read that is strongly recommended... This book applies high caliber scholarship to a daring argument...He does a profound service to the field by creatively enlarging our canvas, and reminds us that we are unlikely to find truth without taking risks." — Barrett L. McCormick, The China JournalMarquette University
"Gilley has produced a lucidly written portrayal of a Chinese polity that may indeed exist one day." — Patricia M. Thronton, Political Science Quarterly
"Gilley has challenged us all to think more clearly about the factors involved in shaping China's future." — Joseph Fewsmith, Taiwan Journal of Democracy
"An ambitious book." — Josephe Cheng, Journal of Chinese Political Science
"A very thoughtful and provocative book.The writing style is fluid, forthright and un-jargon ridden. His argument is interesting and persuasive." — Orville Schell, professor and dean, Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley
"Bruce Gilley, a marvelously lucid writer, has made a major contribution to clarifying a crucial issue that can shape prospects for war and peace on our planet in the twenty-first century and the fate of China's Communist Party dictatorship. In a thoroughly knowledgable and totally engaging manner, Gilley unearths and clarifies the factors and forces that could lead to China's Democratization. This is a truly important book from a morally informed and hard-headed thinker. It is must reading." — Edward Friedman, professor of political science, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"China's Democratic Future is a work of brilliant political analysis and bold prognostication. In its shrewd application of insights from the democratic transitions literature, it also represents an important contribution to comparative politics. Scholars, diplomats, and Chinese of all political stripes will closely study and vigorously debate this stunning account of why and how China will become a democracy—and what it will mean for China and the world." — Larry J. Diamond, senior research fellow, Hoover Institution
"This is the most thoughtful analysis yet of China's current problems and future possibilities. Deeply informed, carefully argued, and forcefully written, the book draws on the thinking of Chinese liberal thinkers and on a broad range of comparative cases and theories to argue the inevitability of China's democratic transition and the likelihood that its path to democracy will be turbulent. This is as good a history of China's future as we are likely to have until that history is safely behind us." — Andrew J. Nathan, co-editor, The Tiananmen Papers, co-author (with Gilley) of China's New Rulers