There has been a long history of Chinese students going to the United States for higher education, dating back to the mid-19th century when Yung Wing attended Yale University. After 1949 and the Communist takeover of China though, the US (and the entire West) was mostly closed to mainland Chinese students for 30 years. It would not be until after the Cultural Revolution and at the dawn of Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening that Chinese students again began to venture to US campuses. Due to the setbacks and consequences of isolation, these students wielded great windfalls from their foreign education upon returning to China, as they were guaranteed prestigious positions in the rapidly developing and opening society. In contrast, the recent and current cohorts associated with the massive boom in Chinese filling American classrooms, dramatically rising in the early 2000s, have not seen the same returns. Upon returning to China fresh with foreign degrees, these students have actually found it difficult to find careers and have had issues of integration back into Chinese society, especially compared to the prior cohort.

In The Pursuit of the Chinese Dream in America: Chinese Undergraduate Students at American Universities, Dennis T. Yang attempts to answer the simple question of why Chinese students continue to venture to the US for higher education despite the evaporation of economic gains. In the research, Yang employs an in-depth and concise ethnographic analysis from the grassroots perspective, interviewing 20 students, 18 parents and 20 teachers from two different international high schools in Shanghai. While the sample size for the research is relatively small and non-generalizable, the reach of the analysis is quite deep, highlighting the author's familiarity with Chinese issues in education and society, and also maximizing the intimacy offered by ethnographic research methods.

The theoretical framework of the book's research is rooted in two sociological theoretical paradigms: the Wisconsin model of status or educational attainment and Pierre Bourdieu's cultural capital theory. Both theories are well explored and applied by the author, but it is the latter cultural capital theory that really complements the book's subject and focus. Specifically, the Chinese concept of “face” (mianzi) perfectly aligns with Bourdieu's cultural capital concept, as the author illustrates how even as economic gains have begun to subside from foreign degree attainment, these kinds of degrees have now become a cultural touchstone for affluence and success for the entire family. The allure is so powerful that Yang finds that the parents and students in the study have accepted the burden from the massive costs of education abroad and even a loss of future guanxi in order to obtain the valued cultural capital.

While the book offers an ethnographic exploration into student, parent and teacher conceptions of education abroad and Chinese educational development, it is the parental view that often contains the most interesting and telling insight into the decision-making process and conception building. Through the interviews, Yang shows that the parents in his study are often the driving force behind the desire to go abroad, with a special desire for the US as a destination. The perceived prestige of American higher education is particularly highlighted in his study, as the parents, some of whom came from the previous generation who gained significantly from studying abroad, pushed the notion that the US has the best higher education system in the world, superior to either Canada or the UK, often citing the high international university rankings.

The book offers a nice sociological and anthropological study on current trends in higher educational development in China and conceptions of international education. However, perhaps missed is a stronger connection to the larger implications of American and Chinese relations. While the author does briefly address the connection in the closing chapter, there are considerable directions that could be further explored in this rich area of inquiry, such as student encounters with criticisms of the larger Chinese political system while on the quest for a foreign degree. Yet, the book does provide a jumping off point for deeper research into these kinds of specific areas of inquiry. Lastly, those who are theorizing on the workings of soft power should take note of the detailed accounts of the attraction to the American higher education system for Chinese teachers, parents and students.