'This book is much more than the historical monograph it appears to be, and should be widely read as women's history, as a study of the creation of an industrial labor force, and simply as a vivid documentary picture of the lives and times of the women ... The book is excellently constructed and written in a way that serves gradually to build up a full and fascinating picture of life and work in the mills ... For those who want a better understanding of what it meant to be a woman in early 20th-century China ... this is a chance not to be missed.'The China Quarterly
