Review Essay

Is Xi Jinping a Marxist?

“Xi Jinping Thought” — articulated in texts by China’s leader and dissected in two new books — has the power to reshape China for decades to come. So what exactly does Xi Jinping think?

Ep. 13: Peter Hessler on 'Other Rivers'

The bestselling author first taught in China in the late 1990s. In 2019, he went back. We caught up with him to ask what had changed, and if you can step into the same river twice.

Jane Perlez’s China Bookshelf

The veteran journalist walks us through five titles from her shelf, from past China correspondents to new novels — and an anti-imperialist board game from the Cultural Revolution.

How a Chinese Student Turned Marxist

Intellectual young Chinese — once the socialist vanguard, now struggling to get by in a capitalist economy — are turning left once more. But when an ostensibly Marxist nation cracks down on labor activism, where is an idealist left to turn?

What China’s Reading: Travelers’ Dispatches

Five recent travel books published in China explore the world beyond, from Peru to Japan. We consider how Chinese travelogues show unique perspectives.

Philip Kuhn: Sorcery and Bureaucracy in Qing China

A supernatural crisis pits an anxious autocrat against his own functionaries, when a hunt for soul-stealing sorcerers turns into a political witch-hunt among 18th-century China’s “deep state.”

Ep. 12: China’s Evolving Art Scene

Contemporary art from China took off in the 1990s, and became a hot commodity in the 2000s. The China Books podcast asks an expert how the scene changed since then, and where it is today.

Upcoming books

The Girl Who Dreamed

Sonia Leung

October 14, 2024

Blacksmith Books

Mandalas

Kurt A. Behrendt

October 15, 2024

Yale University Press

The Conscience of the Party

Robert L. Suettinger

October 15, 2024

Harvard University Press

Manipulating Authoritarian Citizenship

Samantha A. Vortherms

October 15, 2024

Stanford University Press

On Xi Jinping

Kevin Rudd

October 15, 2024

Oxford University Press

Browse more upcoming
Recent books

Beyond Power Transitions

David Kang, Xinyu Ma

October 8, 2024

Columbia University Press

Trans-Generational Trauma After the Chinese Cultural Revolution

Yao Lin

October 3, 2024

Routledge

Fighting Stars

Kyle Barrowman, Mark Gallagher, Yiman Wang

October 3, 2024

Bloomsbury Academic

Community Governance in China

Wu Xiaolin

October 2, 2024

Routledge

The Good Women Of Fudi

Liu Hong

October 1, 2024

Scribe

Browse more recent
Bestselling books

Plan Red

Gordon G. Chang

October 1, 2024

Humanix Books

Mao’s America

Xi Van Fleet

October 31, 2023

Center Street

Chinese Enough

Kristina Cho

September 24, 2024

Artisan

The Red Emperor

Michael Sheridan

August 29, 2024

Headline Press

New Cold Wars

David E. Sanger

April 16, 2024

Penguin Random House

Browse more bestselling
Editors' picks

At the Edge of Empire

Edward Wong

June 25, 2024

Viking

Private Revolutions

Yuan Yang

July 2, 2024

Viking

Other Rivers

Peter Hessler

July 9, 2024

Penguin Press

Sound and Silence

Yan Lianke

April 23, 2024

Duke University Press

Growing Up under a Red Flag

Ying Chang Compestine

May 7, 2024

Rocky Pond Books

Browse more picks

From the Archive

Where the River Reaches Home

Three recent books narrate family histories that flow over time and space. But when identities evolve across borders, language holds the memory that carries us back to where we came from.

New Photography Books on China

Five recent photography collections, from a frontline view of wartime China to a bucolic portrait of a Hong Kong village, show how images can speak volumes.

Contemporary Chinese Art Photography

A collection of three decades worth of Chinese art photography shows a country in social and cultural foment, questioning the status quo and pushing aesthetic boundaries.

Ep. 11: Beijing in Short Fiction

China’s capital is so difficult to capture that sometimes only fiction can suffice. The editor of a new short story collection explains how a literary kaleidoscope can be the best lens to view Beijing.

The Erasure of the Uyghurs

Oppression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang has slipped from headlines — but two recent memoirs by Uyghurs abroa attempt to portray the minority as more than just victims.

Summer China Reads

Five new China books for your summer reading list, from an intergenerational family memoir to a children's picture book of the Cultural Revolution.

Book Talk: Edward Wong on the Edge of Empire

The New York Times journalist tells us how his father followed Mao's star in the 1950s — and how the frontiers he reported on in the 2000s were a world apart.

Ep. 10: Rethinking U.S.-China Trade

For decades, American companies have profited by outsourcing to China — but supply chain disruptions have laid bare the risks and hidden costs. A new book explores how to strike a better balance.

The Martyrdom of Liu Xiaobo

China’s dissident writer was an exemplar of iconoclastic intellectual spirit, pursuing a more humane society despite state repression. A new biography draws the arc of his rebellion and untimely death.

Panel Event: Will China and Taiwan Come to Conflict?

A murmuration of China experts discuss the situation across the Taiwan Strait, and a new edited collection on how to deter an invasion or blockade.

How to Avoid Conflict in Taiwan

Xi Jinping has made clear his desire to "reunify" Taiwan. The U.S. and its allies should take him at his word, argues a former deputy national security advisor, and make the case for deterrence.

Orville Schell on China in the 1980s

The 1980s in China were an exciting, ephemeral period of opening. The Peking Hotel podcast talked to a veteran China watcher who lived, and recorded, what happened.

From the Archive

Sign up for our newsletter