The lives and aspirations of young Chinese (those between 14 and 26 years old) have been transformed in the past five decades. By examining youth cultures around three historical points - 1968, 1988, and 2008 - this book argues that present-day youth culture in China has both international and local roots. Paul Clark describes how the Red Guards and sent-down youth of the Cultural Revolution era carved out a space for themselves, asserting their distinctive identities, despite tight political controls. By the late 1980s, Chinese-style rock music, sports, and other recreations began to influence the identities of Chinese youth. In the 21st century, the Internet offered a new, broader space for expressing youthful fandom and frustrations. From the 1960s to the present, global youth culture has been reworked to serve the needs of the young Chinese.

How Music Works is David Byrne’s remarkable and buoyant celebration of a subject he’s spent a lifetime thinking about. He explains how profoundly music is shaped by its time and place, and how the advent of recording technology forever changed our relationship to playing, performing, and listening to music. Acting as historian and anthropologist, raconteur and social scientist, he searches for patterns—and tells us how they have affected his own work over the years with Talking Heads and his many collaborators. Touching on the joy, physics, and the business of making music, he also shows how it is inextricably linked to its cultural and physical context. His range is panoptic, taking us from La Scala to African villages, from his teenage reel-to-reel recordings to his latest work in a home music studio. How Music Works is a brainy, irresistible adventure and an impassioned argument about music’s liberating, life-affirming power.

《民间文化与公民社会》主要是在尝试把“民间”成长为公民社会的现代历程与中国文化的世纪变迁并置起来展开论说。作者基于在湖北、河北、粤东北和西北、东北等地区的实地调查，书写社会中的文化，呈现活生生的“文化中国”，分析民间文化的复兴，讨论文化时间与文化空间的重构，诊断公民社会的发展。

本书置身解政治化视野，反思“新英国病”，推进批判理论的当代化进程； 本书聚焦于犬儒主义与后现代性之间的关联，将文化研究的巨大理论潜能现实化； 本书在文学与哲学的对话之中展开政治伦理话题，对后现代性展开了有理有据的批判； 本书区分沉思的生活与行动的生活，对比活跃的生命与深度的精神，在狄德罗、黑格尔、本雅明、阿伦特等经典作家的精神之光的烛照下审视当今世界，揭示后现代政治的形而上学前提及其限度。

香港與日本經濟關係密切，日本的商品和消費文化已深入社會各階層，成為中國以外首個對香港文化產生重要影響的亞洲國家。不過，港人對日本的了解甚少，多只限於表面的商品文化。由於過去戰爭的關係，亞洲國家對日本始終心存顧忌，加上去年四月中國內地爆發的反日熱潮，今天去談日本研究，要客觀地接受日本文化，相信會比過去會有更多的障礙。香港雖然毗連中國，與內地關係密切，但並沒有捲入中國的反日浪潮中。如果說台灣有「哈日」，內地有「反日」，則香港應有怎樣的對日態度呢？本書或許能夠提供答案。 本書的目的在於使用深入淺出的方法，簡單的文字，希望能讓更多的人跨進學術門檻，接觸到日本研究，啟發他們有進一步探討香港的日本文化之興趣。

本书以1960年代的美国社会为背景，阐述了美国社会商业文化、反主流文化与嬉皮消费主义的兴起。1960年代的美国社会出现了二战以来最大的文化变革，人们开始反思过去，审视未来，反传统的思潮甚嚣尘上，这股思潮后来又波及到整个西方社会。在这种文化变革下，社会的各个方面都产生了巨大变化，社会的转型加剧，作者把研究的笔触伸向了社会变革的深处。