What is Falun Gong?

A new book attempts to answer this question:

FALUN GONG AND THE FUTURE OF CHINA

By David Ownby

By 291 pp. Oxford University Press. $29.95

Here is a review from the New York Times.

Ownby himself praises another book on this subject, David Palmer's Qigong Fever: Body, Science, and Utopia in China -- and makes it clear where his own interpretations tend to diverge. The biggest difference between the books, from the everyday reader's point of view, is that Palmer looks at the larger Qigong movement since the 1940s and explores Falun Gong within that context. Ownby's book is focused entirely on Falun Gong -- both in China and in the Chinese diaspora.

Another book on Falun Gong is "Falun Gong: The End of Days", by Maria Hsia Chang. Though not perfect (and somewhat trivialized by David Ownby), it offers less history and more about the actual beliefs of Falun Gong.