Excerpt

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?

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.

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.

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.

Upcoming books

Environment and Selection of Technology

Zhenghong Xiao (tr. Xiaoming Xu)

September 19, 2024

Springer

Not Just a Man’s War

Yihong Pan

September 19, 2024

UBC Press

China and the Palestinian Organizations

Shai Har-El

September 20, 2024

Palgrave Macmillan

In Search of Admiration and Respect

Yanqiu Zheng

September 23, 2024

University of Michigan Press

Chinese Enough

Kristina Cho

September 24, 2024

Artisan

Browse more upcoming
Recent books

Motherlands

Weijia Pan

September 17, 2024

Milkweed Editions

Mo Yi

Mo Yi (ed. Holly Roussell)

September 17, 2024

Thames & Hudson

The End of Engagement

David M. McCourt

September 17, 2024

Oxford University Press

Shanghai Saga

John Pal

September 17, 2024

Folk Tales from China

F.T. Weaver

September 17, 2024

Browse more recent
Bestselling books

The Red Emperor

Michael Sheridan

August 29, 2024

Headline Press

Blood Money

Peter Schweizer

February 27, 2024

Harper

The Night Ends with Fire

K.X. Song

July 2, 2024

Penguin Random House

New Cold Wars

David E. Sanger

April 16, 2024

Penguin Random House

Other Rivers

Peter Hessler

July 9, 2024

Penguin Press

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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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Habit of Hoping

In the wake of Tiananmen, can a mother’s love, or a wife’s concern, transcend national trauma?

Where are the Tiananmen Protest Leaders Today?

35 years after Tiananmen, the most-wanted student and worker demonstrators now live in America, Hong Kong and Taiwan. A journalist who covered the protests caught up with six of them, to see what perspectives fresh terrain has brought.

Sarah Conger: Letters from the Boxer Rebellion

In 1900, the wife of an American envoy to China was caught up in the infamous siege of Beijing. The letters she wrote at the time, published later, show humanity amidst drama and fear.

From the Archive

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