Kang (comparative literature, cultural studies, and Chinese, Duke U.), adopting modified portions of Wallerstein's world systems theory, explores the past decade's worth of change in China within the context of growing capitalist globalization. He views China changes in China as a form of modernity that needs to be understood both in terms of its local specificity, particularly the legacy of Mao's counterhegemonic project, and the impact of universalizing capitalism. In various chapters, he looks at such topics as the clash between the ideologies of socialism and developmentalism, the tensions played out between Maoism and capitalist consumerism in the realm of popular culture, the rise of Chinese avant-garde experimental literature in the 1980s as a reflection of the change into postrevolutionary society, and the cultural and ideological impact of the Internet. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)