From Mao to Market: Rent Seeking, Local Protectionism, and Marketization in China. By Andrew H. Wedeman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 292p. $60.00.

In the debate on postsocialist transitions, China has proved a contentious anomaly for proponents of the “big bang” and “gradualism” to explain. In particular, scholars have contended that China's combination of capitalist markets with socialist purchasing and marketing organs provided opportunities to gain rents by taking advantage of discrepancies between the two price mechanisms. Officials gain from such a pattern of rent seeking, which tends to stall reform efforts. Somewhat paradoxically, Andrew Wedeman argues that economic rents propelled China toward a free market economy, a novel contribution to the debate on postsocialist transitions.