A review by margaretefg
The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed by Michael Meyer

4.0

I found Mayer an engaging guide to the old hutong neighborhoods of Beijing. The book is partly a story of his two years living there and volunteer teaching in a local elementary school and partly an investigation of the history of Beijing's architecture and neighborhoods and the policies and practices that are reshaping the city. The history is enlivened by detailed portraits of individuals, famous and ordinary.