|Editorial reviews|
"This sophisticated, beautifully written book explores the sensorial worlds of Old Beijing connoisseurs and their nonhuman companions. I-Yi Hsieh’s text immerses us in nostalgic activities including the poetics of cricket-human communication and the mutually sustaining labor of heritage goldfish and their breeders. The result is an unforgettable account of multispecies life existing on the margins of a city marked by its relentless pursuit of growth."
--- Nicholas Bartlett, Assistant Professor, Barnard College, Columbia University
"This is a brilliant and timely book. Blending political economy, social psychology, ethnography and ecology, Hsieh’s original and engaging study views modern China through the traders and clients of the city’s insect-fish-flower-bird markets. The author paints an intimate picture of their lives and livelihoods, showing how the nostalgic traditions of folk-art connoisseurship subsist in a society under intense political control and commercial pressures. Hsieh’s work is at the same time theoretically sophisticated and deeply humane, taking seriously the domestic care of nature in miniature, against the background of implacable external forces."
--- Peter Stewart, Director, Classical Art Research Centre Professor of Ancient Art University of Oxford
|