Juan Du's history of the forty-year-old city of Shenzhen is a carefully crafted reflection grounded in her fifteen-year engagement with the city through design, research, and curation. The book's 2020 publication coincides with new international awareness of a city that few North Americans and Europeans had even heard of until it was mentioned in recent media reports regarding trade wars between the United States and China. According to Wired magazine, Shenzhen is the “Silicon Valley of hardware,” home to prominent Chinese tech companies such as ZTE, Huawei, and Tencent, each of which has been sanctioned by the United States either for allegedly stealing corporate intelligence or for designing and selling technology that can be used to spy on foreign states and businesses.1 Conservative U.S. media have called on President Trump to impose sanctions on Shenzhen start-up DJI for its near monopoly on the international consumer drone market. In contrast...

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