Milk consumption in Modern China: politics of science, dietary health knowledge, and identity building: Shaping milk consumption in modern China: an examination of the development and management of Diary industry in modern Shanghai (in Chinese), by Zhang Sirui, Shanghai, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2020, 216 pp., ¥58.00 (paperback), ISBN: 9787552031430: Mother's milk and cow's milk: infant feeding and the reconstruction of motherhood in modern China, 1895–1937 (in Chinese), by Lu Shuying, Shanghai, East China Normal University Press, 2020, 350 pp., ¥69.80 (paperback), ISBN: 9787576004472: Milk craze: body, science, and hope in China, by Veronica S. W. Mak, Honolulu, University of Hawai'i Press, 2021, 224 pp., $28.00 (paperback), ISBN: 9780824887988

The article reports that milk was not a staple food in China; in fact, it served as a marker of racial distinction between the agricultural Han-Chinese and the non-Han nomads on the steppe. Since the nineteenth century, however, milk has increasingly become a common choice for infant feeding and adult nourishment; moreover, it has become a matter of national prosperity.