For many centuries, Chinese people have been emigrating and creating distinctively Chinese communities outside mainland China, even as they adjust to the foreign cultures in which they put down roots. A third-generation huaqiao, overseas Chinese, in Los Angeles is a very different person from one in, say, Manila, yet they share a heritage that may have molded their diverse experiences in similar ways. This book provides everything one could want to know about the Chinese diaspora in a very user-friendly way. Though encyclopedic in its wide-ranging detail, the information is not presented in encyclopedic form. First, essays analyze the origins of the overseas Chinese, their migrations, institutions, and relations with the motherland and with non-Chinese peoples. The rest of the book, more than half, is devoted to outlines of Chinese societies around the world: in Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, Europe, East Asia, the Indian Ocean, and Africa. Maps, charts, drawings, and imaginatively chosen vintage and contemporary photographs describe the Chinese communities established in these disparate places. Questions of racial discrimination and identity in the modern world are approached rationally and dispassionately. A vast amount of history and social analysis is presented, yet editor Lynn Pan has maintained unusual clarity and accessibility in a book that could have been overwhelming in its thoroughness. --John Stevenson

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