This ambitious book by Pál Nyíri yields refreshing insights about how diverse forms of travel—internal and international migration as well as domestic and international tourism—similarly reinforce the authority of the Chinese state to determine the meaning of mobility for the modern Chinese citizen. A clearly written and accessible work, Mobility and Cultural Authority in Contemporary China may be recommended to advanced undergraduates as well as to postgraduate students and scholars from Asian studies, cultural studies, or the social sciences interested in themes of mobility, culture, and globalization.

The juxtaposition in one book of different types of human mobility, usually approached as discrete topics of research, renders two arguments that Nyíri cogently outlines in the introduction. First, it highlights their shared significance to the “dominant discourse of modernization” (p. 7) promulgated by the “state-market matrix” (p. 5) in China today. Mobility of all sorts promotes China's economic growth: the “cheap” labor...

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