<p>When China hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics - and amazed<br>international observers with both its pageantry and gold-medal<br>count - it made a very public statement about the<br>country's surge to global power. Yet, China has a much longer<br>history of using sport to communicate a political message. <i>Sporting<br>Gender</i> is the first book to explore the rise to fame of female<br>athletes in China during its national crisis of 1931-45 brought on by<br>the Japanese invasion. By re-mapping lives and careers of individual<br>female athletes, administrators, and film actors within a wartime<br>context, Gao shows how these women coped with the conflicting demands<br>of nationalist causes, unwanted male attention, and modern fame. While<br>addressing the themes of state control, media influence, fashion, and<br>changes in gender roles, she argues that the athletic female form<br>helped to create a new ideal of modern womanhood in China at time when<br>women's emancipation and national needs went hand in hand. This<br>book brings vividly to life the histories of these athletes and<br>demonstrates how intertwined they were with the aims of the state and<br>the needs of society.</p><p><b>Yunxiang Gao</b> is an associate professor of East Asian<br>history at Ryerson University.