Readers seeking information about prominent urban Chinese artists, writers, composers, film-makers, public intellectuals, and socio-cultural trends in the reform period will find much of use in the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture, a collaborative transnational effort that is unfortunately marred by unevenness and sloppy editing. Browsers will also find lively and opinionated essays about cars and taxis, falun gong, democracy, dating and sex shops.

Editor Edward L. Davis gave free reign to the contributors of the almost 1,200 entries in this fifth volume, encouraging them to pass judgment and editorialize. He also wisely involved mainland scholars like Yue Daiyun and Dai Jinhua when drawing up the lists of entries, and called upon Francesca Dal Lago to oversee the book's excellent sections on visual arts. While the Encyclopedia's list of contributors includes prominent, well-established scholars (Timothy Cheek on intellectuals and academics, Frank Dikötter on prisons, and Geremie Barme´ on seemingly anything he wanted to write about), its large number of young, Chineseborn scholars based in North America and Europe reflects an important shift in the field of Chinese studies.

Entries, varying in length from a single paragraph to ten pages (see Lionel Jensen's piece on falun gong, for example), are organized alphabetically, include cross-references, and are often followed by suggestions for further reading. A helpful thematic classified entry list precedes the entries themselves. Unfortunately, problematic organization undermines the book's usefulness for both literate Chinese readers and those with no knowledge of the language. Pinyin renderings of names and phrases are not accompanied by Chinese characters, hampering the task of scholars hoping to conduct further primary-source research on a particular person.