RaveThe Los Angeles Review of Books...[a] compelling new book ... Johnson’s fundamental aim in this book is to make sense of this great spiritual awakening, which he does with compassion and insight. He also wisely avoids offering any facile or sweeping explanations for a phenomenon that is clearly not unique to China. Rather, by focusing on four different religious groups that cut across regional and socioeconomic divides — and by following them all through a full lunar year — he is able to situate the particular Chinese experience within larger realities that define our current world ... it is precisely Marx’s notion of how religion serves a purpose for several different Chinese communities that Ian Johnson’s wonderful book captures so well.
