Portraits of “Primitives”: Ordering Human Kinds in the Chinese Nation. By Susan D. Blum. [Oxford: Roman & Littlefield, 2001. 234 pp. £18.95. ISBN 0-7425-0092-6.]

Extract

Susan Blum's book on Han Chinese attitudes toward, and stereotypes of, “minority nationalities” (shaoshu minzu) in China reads like a story we've heard many times in bits and pieces but never in its entirety. For those of us who work in China, particularly in regions where shaoshu minzu predominate, Portraits of “Primitives” tells a story with which we are in various ways familiar, but which has never yet been told with such clarity and thoroughness.