Book cover of Deep China: The Moral Life of the Person

Book description

"Deep China" investigates the emotional and moral lives of the Chinese people as they adjust to the challenges of modernity. Sharing a medical anthropology and cultural psychiatry perspective, Arthur Kleinman, Yunxiang Yan, Jing Jun, Sing Lee, Everett Zhang, Pan Tianshu, Wu Fei, and Guo Jinhua delve into intimate and sometimes…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Deep China as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This collection, by anthropologists and psychiatrists, gives us a glimpse of soul searching by ordinary people as China compresses centuries of industrial growth into two decades. The unprecedented fragmentation of families and loss of culture have scattered lives and disoriented minds. The chapter authors consider intimate topics --  death, sex, depression, stigma, suicide, and madness -- that lie beneath the glossy images of Chinese achievements. They reveal the deep confusion of ordinary people as they struggle with questions of morality and humanity in a relentless, turbulent world.

From Aihwa's list on people's lives in contemporary China.

If you love Deep China...

Book cover of The Rosewood Penny

The Rosewood Penny by J.S. Fields,

2023 Queer Indie Award Nominee!

The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.

On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…

Want books like Deep China?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Deep China.

Browse books like Deep China

Book cover of Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China
Book cover of Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng's China
Book cover of Van Gogh on Demand: China and the Readymade

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,340

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like Deep China, you might also like...

Book cover of Murder, Lies and Chocolate

Murder, Lies and Chocolate by Sally Berneathy,

Book 2, Death by Chocolate series.

Rodney Bradford comes into Lindsay's restaurant, offers to buy her small house for double its value, eats her brownies, and drops dead on the sidewalk in front. Next, her almost-ex-husband offers to sign the divorce papers, but only if she'll give him her small,…

Book cover of Tangle of Time

Tangle of Time by Maureen Thorpe,

A spellbinding journey through time and cultures.

When Annie Thornton, midwife and apprentice witch, falls through time to a 15th-century Yorkshire village with her telepathic cat, Rosamund, she befriends Will and Jack, two soldiers returning from the French Wars. Mistress Meg, Annie’s ancestral aunt living in the 15th century, is…

5 book lists we think you will like!