Contagious Capitalism: Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China. By Mary Elizabeth Gallagher. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. 256p. $47.50 cloth, $18.95 paper.

One of the most pressing issues to be addressed with regard to the politics of the People's Republic of China is authoritarian resilience in the face of substantial market reform. Structural Marxism, modernization theory, and transition theory all lead us to expect that strong economic growth (markets and, to a significant extent, privatization), the emergence of a middle class, and the presence of fragmentation within the Chinese leadership might very well unleash forces of democratization. Of course, twentieth-century capitalism does not replicate the Anglo/American experience in which the bourgeoisie is seen to have ushered in democratic institutions, and so some scholars would argue that there is no conundrum to be explained. Nevertheless, the expectation that China's economic transformation will encourage pro-democratic forces persists among those who do and do not know China well.