Legal Scholars and Scholarship in the People’s Republic of China

The PRC legal system can hardly by understood without knowing the leading legal scholars' careers, thoughts, critiques, and contributions, which have influenced and reflected the tortuous path of China's contemporary legal development. Dr. Nongji Zhang's unique work provides comprehensive coverage of the most influential Chinese legal scholars based on personal contacts with and first-hand information of these scholars. This is a book that needs to be read and used by anyone who wishes to understand the PRC legal system more deeply. -- Wang Chengang Nongji Zhang's biographies of pioneering legal scholars in China will act as an important bridge for understanding their contributions to legal discourse, not simply in a Chinese context but globally as well. Her carefully edited selections provide us with intellectual genealogies that have remained opaque outside of China, and remind us that despite political upheavals, serious scholarship on law has continued in China. -- Karen G. Turner Nongji Zhang's new book is a valuable publication, both as a research tool and as a summary introduction to the first generation of legal scholars in the PRC. Many of the figures introduced in this volume may not be well-known in the English literature but will be of interest to scholars working in the field. It opens the door to vast historical records showing how Chinese legal scholars struggled with the idea of law, rights, and revolution. Now that China is, again, embracing Mao's revolutionary spirit, it is even more meaningful to bring that earlier history back to light. -- Dongsheng Zang