Over the past century and a half, China has experienced foreign invasion, warfare, political turmoil, and revolution, along with massive economic and technological change. Through all this change, there is one stable element: grandmothers, as child carers, household managers, religious devotees, transmitters of culture, and, above all, sources of love, warmth, and affection. In this interdisciplinary and longitudinal study, China's Grandmothers sheds light on the status and lives of grandmothers in China over the years from the late Qing Dynasty to the twenty-first century. Combining a wide range of historical and biographical materials, Diana Lary explores the changes and continuities in the lives of grandmothers through revolution, wars, and radical upheaval to the present phase of economic growth. Informed by her own experience as a grandchild and grandmother, Lary offers a fresh and compelling way of looking at gender, family, and ageing in modern Chinese society.

‘In China's Grandmothers, grandmother of three Diana Lary not only pays long-overdue attention to its subject, but also views recent Chinese history through the eyes of grandmothers, providing us with a new and valuable perspective on the totality of social and cultural changes in China over the last 120 years.'

Steven Harrell - University of Washington

‘This is a remarkable book. China's Grandmothers becomes an epic poem, both lyric and thoughtful, of human destiny and social development. These rich and vivid Chinese stories transcend differences between cultures, which I believe will interest readers from many different cultural backgrounds.'

Li Minghuan - Xiamen University

‘In Lary's book, grandmothers become an amazing key to an in-depth and clear-eyed understanding and appreciation of China, its women, and its people. It compels a rethink of gender studies paradigms. Deeply personal and yet deeply academic, this is a rare and beautiful achievement.'

Elizabeth Sinn - The University of Hong Kong

‘In this deeply personal book, Diana Lary draws together her many decades of experience as a leading scholar and interpreter of modern Chinese history and the smaller number of decades of her own experience as a grandmother into a lyrical whole. Far from a typical scholarly book, it reveals surprising continuities in the lives of Chinese women over the past century, and raises some stimulating comparisons with their counterparts in the West. While there are many lessons here about China, perhaps the most important is to remind contemporary readers of their shared humanity with Chinese people past and present.'

Michael Szonyi - Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University

‘Migrations are Lary’s forte, this work covering the beginnings of industrialization at the end of the Qing Dynasty, leading to the reform era … Seamless injection of her own viewpoints save Lary’s book from any taint of scholarly stuffiness on the role of grandmothers, who are the glue that holds the text, and indeed the country, together.’

Isabel Nanton Source: The British Columbia Review

‘Fusing the personal and the academic, Lary brings to light a world filled with warmth and affection, resilience and interdependence. Full of insightful observations, fun details, and wit and wisdom, this book will make a great read for both general readers and specialists.’

Ling Ma Source: The PRC History Review