The history of the People’s Republic of China as a field of study has changed beyond recognition over the last quarter-century. Once covered primarily by political scientists and the occasional sociologist, PRC history now is a recognized area of study in the West, with its own e-journals, Facebook groups, and hires in history departments. A generation of superb historians and their graduate students also have emerged, albeit more cautiously, in the PRC itself. Both Chinese and foreign scholars have produced what has amounted to a remarkable explosion of work in the last two decades, much of it in Chinese, some of it in English or German. The combination of increasingly accessible Chinese archives and individuals within China increasingly willing to speak openly about the post-1949 period created a research environment in which it was not long before thoughtfully edited volumes ensued that confounded old understandings and shed new light on specific periods of PRC history.