This page lists all upcoming China books, defined broadly as any English-language book on or from China that is slated to be published in the next four months. We update this list every other Thursday. If you think we have missed a book, please contact us at listings@chinabooksreview.com, with the publisher link. The categories below are designed to present books by broad groupings, not as a perfect classification, and carousels are capped at 25 titles. Blurbs by Taili Ni, adapted from publisher copy.
Coming soon
Struggle for Empire
The Battles of General Zuo Zongtang
Kenneth M. Swope
A comprehensive modern biography of the late Qing dynasty statesman, strategist, and military commander Zuo Zongtang (1812-1885).
BuyFang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise
A Novel
Yi-han Lin (tr. Jenna Tang)
A fictional account of sexual violence, women's vulnerability and victimization in Taiwan.
BuyStart-up Wolf
The Shenzhen Model of High-Tech Entrepreneurship
Olivia Yijian Liu
An examination of how socially privileged entrepreneurial talents adopt and champion the "wolf culture", a fast-paced, competitive and aspirational work culture prevalent in China today.
BuyThe Transpacific Flow
Creative Writing Programs in China
Jin Feng
An account of university-based creative writing programs in China.
BuyNationalisation, Peasantry and Rural Integration in China I
Xu Yong
An examination of the process of rural reconstruction in China over the course of the twentieth century, taking into account politics, labour and resources, administration, and institutional integration.
BuyThe Chinese Computer
A Global History of the Information Age
Thomas S. Mullaney
The untold story of how the Chinese language overcame unparalleled challenges and revolutionized the world of computing.
BuyGermany and China
How Entanglement Undermines Freedom, Prosperity and Security
Andreas Fulda
A close look at the increasingly interdependent relationship between Germany and China, and the danger of this increasing entanglement.
BuyTextual Patterns and Cosmic Designs in Early China
Benoît Vermander
A construal of the textual patterns and rhetorical arrangements of the Chinese classics.
BuyNothing but the Now
Seven Short Stories by Wen Zhen
Wen Zhen (tr. Dave Haysom)
A collection of of seven short stories that offer a look into various facets of contemporary life in China.
BuySouls Left Behind
A Novel
Fan Wu (tr. Honey Watson)
A novel about members of the Chinese Labour Corps working in France during World War I.
BuyMedia and Truth
French Media and the Depiction of China
Maxime Vivas
A picture of China drawn from the perspective of the French media and France's political class.
BuyChasing Traces
History and Ethnography in the Uplands of Socialist Asia
Eds. Pierre Petit, Jean Michaud
An historical ethnography of the connected highlands of southwest China, Vietnam, and Laos.
BuyChinese Museums
Strategies and Promotion of Contemporary Chinese Art
Ornella De Nigris
An exploration of a range of different approaches to exhibiting and curating art, while also investigating the crucial question of the cultural sustainability of art museums in China.
BuyDestination Macao
Paul French
An investigation of Macao containing 18 true stories of people who lived in or visited Macao in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Crosswinds
Nehru, Zhou and the Anglo-American Competition Over China
Vijay Gokhale
An outline of India's efforts to craft a foreign policy in the context of the Anglo-American competition in the Far East, and how it hoped to enlist China as a partner.
BuyRoving Through Southern China
An American's Explorations of Hong Kong, Macao and Canton in the early 1920s
Harry A. Franck
The travel writings of American Harry A. Franck from his 1920s travels through Hong Kong, Macao and Guangzhou.
BuyRevolutionary Taiwan
Making Nationhood in a Changing World Order
Catherine Lila Chou, Mark Harrison
A history of how Taiwan was revolutionized over the centuries–from settler colonialism, authoritarianism, democracy, and contested sovereignty.
BuyModernising the People’s Liberation Army
Aspiring to be a Global Military Power
Ed. James Char
An examination of the progress made by the Chinese military as it strives to transform itself into a more capable fighting force.
BuyDisorienting Politics
Chimerican Media and Transpacific Entanglements
Fan Yang
An examination of how "Chimerican" (referencing the symbiosis of China and the U.S.) media co-create the figure of rising China and extend a political imagination beyond the conventional ground of the nation.
BuyTiananmen Square
A Novel
Lai Wen
A coming-of-age novel about young love and lasting friendships forged in the years leading up to the Tiananmen Square student protests.
BuyMadmen in Shanghai
A Social History of Advertising in Modern China (1914-1956)
Cécile Armand
A novel perspective on the emergence of Chinese consumer society through a historical investigation of the advertising industry in pre-Communist China.
BuyThe Great Wonders of China
Ed. Jonathan Fenby
An updated and multifaceted account of China's history, religion, philosophy, arts and sciences, and more.
BuyRevolutionary Stagecraft
Theater, Technology, and Politics in Modern China
Tarryn Li-Min Chun
A history of Chinese theater that reveals the deep entanglement of technological modernization, political agendas, and the performing arts in modern China.
BuySuperstars
My China in Tang Poetry Volume 1
Susan Wan Dolling
A collection of translated poems from Tang poets, accompanied by explanations of the meaning and context of each.
BuyUpcoming Politics Books
Nationalisation, Peasantry and Rural Integration in China I
Xu Yong
An examination of the process of rural reconstruction in China over the course of the twentieth century, taking into account politics, labour and resources, administration, and institutional integration.
BuyGermany and China
How Entanglement Undermines Freedom, Prosperity and Security
Andreas Fulda
A close look at the increasingly interdependent relationship between Germany and China, and the danger of this increasing entanglement.
BuyCrosswinds
Nehru, Zhou and the Anglo-American Competition Over China
Vijay Gokhale
An outline of India's efforts to craft a foreign policy in the context of the Anglo-American competition in the Far East, and how it hoped to enlist China as a partner.
BuyRevolutionary Taiwan
Making Nationhood in a Changing World Order
Catherine Lila Chou, Mark Harrison
A history of how Taiwan was revolutionized over the centuries–from settler colonialism, authoritarianism, democracy, and contested sovereignty.
BuyModernising the People’s Liberation Army
Aspiring to be a Global Military Power
Ed. James Char
An examination of the progress made by the Chinese military as it strives to transform itself into a more capable fighting force.
BuyChina’s Economic Miracle
Experiences for Russia and the World
Sergei Glazyev
A discussion of the Chinese economic miracle and how China has increasingly become the core of a new world economic order.
BuyLost Decade
The US Pivot to Asia and the Rise of Chinese Power
Robert Blackwill and Richard Fontaine
An analysis of the American "Pivot to Asia" that argues that the US lacks a coherent approach to the Indo-Pacific.
BuyChina in Global Capitalism
Building International Solidarity Against Imperial Rivalry
Kevin Lin, Rosa Liu, Eli Friedman, Ashley Smith
An argument that makes the case that workers and socially marginalized people in both the U.S. and China should oppose imperialism in all its forms and construct a movement that centers international solidarity
BuyPivot of China
Spatial Politics and Inequality in Modern Zhengzhou
Mark Baker
A look into how China's modern history has been marked by deep spatial inequalities, told through the story of the city of Zhengzhou.
BuyCarrying Capacity of China’s Resources, Environment, Population, and Economy
Dong Qiu (tr. Almin Zhang)
An examination of the progression of carrying capacity research and its correlation with sustainable development, and the links that has to China's challenges in achieving sustainable development.
BuyThe Rise of the Semi-Core
China, India, and Pakistan in the World-System
Samee Lashari
An analysis of modern capitalist history that argues that nations must possess both economic and strategic national powers to maintain their hierarchical position.
BuyThe Latecomer’s Rise
Policy Banks and the Globalization of China's Development Finance
Muyang Chen
A close look at the nature and impact of Chinese development finance.
BuyAflame for Freedom in Tibet
The Origin and Development of the Self-Immolation Movement
Namloyak Dhungser (author, tr.), Joshua Esler (ed. tr.)
An examination of the origins and development of the protest movement in Tibet and around the world.
BuyChina under Xi Jinping
A New Assessment
Eds. Qiang Fang, Xiaobing Li
A look at Xi's China during the pandemic.
BuyThe Xi Jinping Effect
Eds. Ashley Esarey, Rongbin Han
A collection of contributions exploring the relationship between Xi Jinping and multiple areas of political and social transformation.
BuyCOVID-19 and U.S.-China Relations
Zheng Wang
An examination of the impact of COVID-19 on U.S.-China relations in areas from public health to trade to rising nationalism and more.
BuyThe Boiling Moat
Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan
Ed. Matt Pottinger
A scholarly argument that a robust military strategy for Taiwan, the U.S., Japan, Australia, and Europe is essential for countering Beijing's aggression.
BuyWhy the World Needs China
Development, Environmentalism, Conflict Resolution & Common Prosperity
Kyle Ferrana
An argument presenting China as the de facto leader of a future multipolar world.
BuyContender States and Modern Chinese International Thought
From the Republican Era until the "Chinese School of International Relations"
Ferran Perez Mena
An argument that the development of modern Chinese international thought has been shaped by the distinctive nature of the Chinese state as a contender state and its global positioning since 1912.
BuyCutting the Mass Line
Water, Politics, and Climate in Southwest China
Andrea E. Pia
An exploration of the growing water supply crisis through an ethnographic study of a rural minority community in China threatened by climate change.
BuyThe Art of State Persuasion
China's Strategic Use of Media in Interstate Disputes
Frances Yaping Wang
A look into pacification campaigns to enhance understanding of Chinese state propaganda, challenging the traditional view of China's propaganda as uniformly aggressive.
BuyThe War for Chinese Talent in America
The Politics of Technology and Knowledge in Sino-U.S. Relations in the 21st Century
David Zweig
A documentation of China's "no-holds-barred" effort to access U.S. technology, and America's vigorous counterattack and efforts to disrupt the transfer of U.S. technology to China.
BuyOcean Governance and Conflict in the East and South China Sea
Negotiating Natural Resources, Institutions and Power
Christian Schultheiss
An account of the negotiations between China, Japan, Taiwan the Philippines, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries about the East and South China Sea disputes.
BuyThe Fragility of China
Breaking Points of an Invincible Regime
Dennis Unkovic
A look into the critical factors and developments that have the potential to derail Xi Jinping's ambitions for China.
BuyUpcoming History Books
Struggle for Empire
The Battles of General Zuo Zongtang
Kenneth M. Swope
A comprehensive modern biography of the late Qing dynasty statesman, strategist, and military commander Zuo Zongtang (1812-1885).
BuyThe Chinese Computer
A Global History of the Information Age
Thomas S. Mullaney
The untold story of how the Chinese language overcame unparalleled challenges and revolutionized the world of computing.
BuyMedia and Truth
French Media and the Depiction of China
Maxime Vivas
A picture of China drawn from the perspective of the French media and France's political class.
BuyDestination Macao
Paul French
An investigation of Macao containing 18 true stories of people who lived in or visited Macao in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Madmen in Shanghai
A Social History of Advertising in Modern China (1914-1956)
Cécile Armand
A novel perspective on the emergence of Chinese consumer society through a historical investigation of the advertising industry in pre-Communist China.
BuyThe Great Wonders of China
Ed. Jonathan Fenby
An updated and multifaceted account of China's history, religion, philosophy, arts and sciences, and more.
BuyRevolutionary Stagecraft
Theater, Technology, and Politics in Modern China
Tarryn Li-Min Chun
A history of Chinese theater that reveals the deep entanglement of technological modernization, political agendas, and the performing arts in modern China.
BuyChinese Workers of the World
Colonialism, Chinese Labor, and the Yunnan-Indochina Railway
Selda Altan
A history of worker struggles and labor conflicts along the Yunnan-Indochina Railway constructed between 1898 and 1910.
BuyMao Zedong and Contemporary China
Exploring the World Where Truth Falls from the Heavens
Katsuji Nakagane
An evaluation of Mao Zedong and what he brought to China.
BuyChina in Seven Banquets
A Flavourful History
Thomas David DuBois
A journey spanning five thousand years of Chinese culinary heritage, exploring the essense of each era through seven extraordinary meals.
BuyA History of Uyghur Buddhism
Johan Elverskog
A history of Buddhism among the Uyghurs from the ninth to seventeenth century.
BuyTo Be an Actress
Labor and Performance in Anna May Wong's Cross-Media World
Yiman Wang
A study of Chinese American actress Anna May Wong's cross-media and transnational career.
BuyHedging the China Threat
US-Taiwan Security Relations Since 1949
Shao-cheng Sun
A look at the history of US commitments to Taiwan since the presidency of Harry S. Truman.
BuyThe Dong World and Imperial China’s Southwest Silk Road
Trade, Security, and State Formation
James A. Anderson
An investigation of the principalities, chiefdoms, and market nodes that emerged and flourished in the network of routes that passed through the "Dong world," a collection of Tai-speaking polities in upland valleys from the eighth to thirteenth centuries along China's southern periphery.
BuyDreaming the New Woman
An Oral History of Missionary Schoolgirls in Republican China
Jennifer Bond
An exploration of the experiences of girls who attended missionary middle schools in Republican China, based on extensive oral history interviews.
BuyContest for Citizenship and Collective Violence during China’s Cultural Revolution
Yang Lijun
An exploration of how political struggles within the state, competing sectarian interests and other complex factors intertwined to produce forms of collective violence during China's Cultural Revolution.
BuyHistorical Studies on Comfort Women in Shanghai
A Field Study Approach
Zhiliang Su, Lifei Chen, Yao Fei (tr. Xie'an Huang)
A history of the military comfort women system in China.
BuyNot Just a Man’s War
Chinese Women's Memories of the War of Resistance against Japan, 1931-45
Yihong Pan
A look at the stories of ordinary Chinese women during WWII, told through interviews, published reminiscences and oral histories.
BuyImages of War
The Cultural Construction of Qing Martial Prowess
Ma Ya-Chen
A history of Manchu rule informed by art history.
BuyMaking Mao’s Steelworks
Industrial Manchuria and the Transnational Origins of Chinese Socialism
Koji Hirata
A history of China's accelerated industrialization and the complex interplay of transnational influences in Mao-era China.
BuyMission to Mao
US Intelligence and the Chinese Communists in World War II
Sara B. Castro
An innovative history of US intelligence officers on the ground and the first official contacts between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.
BuyUnderstanding the Communist Party of China
Ed. Chuntao Xie
An exploration of the Communist Party of China's history, governing philosophy, governing strategies, and remarkable achievements.
BuyChina and the Palestinian Organizations
1964-1971
Shai Har-El
An exploration of the relations between China and the Palestinian organizations and their development during the period between 1964 and 1971.
BuyGlobal History in China
Xin Fan
An exploration of global history as an emerging field of scholarly studies in China today.
BuyThe Great Reversal
Britain, China, and the Struggle for Power and Influence that Shaped the Modern World
Kerry Brown
A history of the relationship between Britain and China, from 1600 to the present.
BuyUpcoming Society/Culture Books
Start-up Wolf
The Shenzhen Model of High-Tech Entrepreneurship
Olivia Yijian Liu
An examination of how socially privileged entrepreneurial talents adopt and champion the "wolf culture", a fast-paced, competitive and aspirational work culture prevalent in China today.
BuyThe Transpacific Flow
Creative Writing Programs in China
Jin Feng
An account of university-based creative writing programs in China.
BuyTextual Patterns and Cosmic Designs in Early China
Benoît Vermander
A construal of the textual patterns and rhetorical arrangements of the Chinese classics.
BuyChasing Traces
History and Ethnography in the Uplands of Socialist Asia
Eds. Pierre Petit, Jean Michaud
An historical ethnography of the connected highlands of southwest China, Vietnam, and Laos.
BuyChinese Museums
Strategies and Promotion of Contemporary Chinese Art
Ornella De Nigris
An exploration of a range of different approaches to exhibiting and curating art, while also investigating the crucial question of the cultural sustainability of art museums in China.
BuyRoving Through Southern China
An American's Explorations of Hong Kong, Macao and Canton in the early 1920s
Harry A. Franck
The travel writings of American Harry A. Franck from his 1920s travels through Hong Kong, Macao and Guangzhou.
BuyDisorienting Politics
Chimerican Media and Transpacific Entanglements
Fan Yang
An examination of how "Chimerican" (referencing the symbiosis of China and the U.S.) media co-create the figure of rising China and extend a political imagination beyond the conventional ground of the nation.
BuySuperstars
My China in Tang Poetry Volume 1
Susan Wan Dolling
A collection of translated poems from Tang poets, accompanied by explanations of the meaning and context of each.
BuyGames and Play in Chinese and Sinophone Cultures
Eds. Li Guo, Douglas Eyman, Hongmei Sun
A history of games and gaming in China.
BuyThe Precariat in Western China
Poverty, Risks and Influences
Xueyang Ma
An overview of the experiences and dynamics of precarious workers' in-work poverty in western China.
BuyChina’s Camel Country
Livestock and Nation-Building at a Pastoral Frontier
Thomas White
A look at how state environmentalism in China has transformed the lives of ethnic Mongol pastoralists and their animals.
BuyTaiwan’s COVID-19 Experience
Governance, Governmentality, and the Global Pandemic
Eds. Ming-Cheng M. Lo, Yu-Yueh Tsai, Michael Shiyung Liu
An exploration of how Taiwan navigated the COVID-19 pandemic.
BuyIt’s My Party
Tat Ming Pair and the Postcolonial Politics of Popular Music in Hong Kong
Yiu Fai Chow, Jeroen de Kloet, Leonie Schmidt
A study of the sonic history and present of Hong Kong through the prism of Tat Ming Pair.
BuyQueering Kinship
Non-heterosexual Couples, Parents and Families in Guangdong, China
Han Tao
An exploration of tactics queer people employ to have children and form queer families, and how they navigate cultivating or losing kinship relations, based on ethnographic fieldwork in Guangdong.
BuyAt the Edge of Empire
A Family’s Reckoning with China
Edward Wong
A dual narrative that tells the story of modern China by braiding an intergenerational family memoir with first-person contemporary reporting by the former New York Times Beijing bureau chief.
BuyConfucian Governmentality and Socialist Autocracy in Contemporary China
Chih-yu Shih
An exmaination of the relationship between citizens and leaders in Chinese autocracy, challenging the binary of authoritarianism and democracy.
BuyInvisible Warfare
How Does a Book Defeat an Empire?
Liao Yiwu (tr. Michael M. Day)
A memoir from writer, poet, musician, and dissident Liao Yiwu, reflecting on his journey from imprisonment in Sichuan to his current life in Berlin.
BuyPrivate Revolutions
How Ordinary Women Are Taking On China's New Social Order
Yuan Yang
A portrait of modern China told through the lives of four ordinary women striving for a better future in a highly unequal society.
BuyOther Rivers
A Chinese Education
Peter Hessler
An account of two generations of students in China's heartland, chronicling a country in the midst of tumultuous change through the prism of its education system.
BuyCircular Ecologies
Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China
Amy Zhang
An analysis of Guangzhou's implementation of technologies and infrastructures to modernize the city's waste management system, and the grassroots ecologies politics that emerged in response.
BuyLearning to Love
Intimacy and the DIscourse of Development in China
Sonya E. Pritzker
A range of perspectives on the embodied, relational, affective and sociopolitical project of "learning to love", and how this form of self-care exists alongside the fast-moving society of contemporary China.
BuyShanghai Bund Architecture
Michelle Qiao, Zhang Xuefei
A presentation of the stories of Bund architecture from a journalistic perspective, including 120 images and historical photos.
BuySino-Muslims, Networking, and Identity in Late Imperial China
Longstanding Natives and Dispersed Minorities
Shaodan Zhang
An exploration of the everday life of Muslims in late imperial China proper, revealing how they integrated themselves into Chinese society, whilst also maintaining distinct Islamic features.
BuyUpcoming Fiction Books
Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise
A Novel
Yi-han Lin (tr. Jenna Tang)
A fictional account of sexual violence, women's vulnerability and victimization in Taiwan.
BuyNothing but the Now
Seven Short Stories by Wen Zhen
Wen Zhen (tr. Dave Haysom)
A collection of of seven short stories that offer a look into various facets of contemporary life in China.
BuySouls Left Behind
A Novel
Fan Wu (tr. Honey Watson)
A novel about members of the Chinese Labour Corps working in France during World War I.
BuyTiananmen Square
A Novel
Lai Wen
A coming-of-age novel about young love and lasting friendships forged in the years leading up to the Tiananmen Square student protests.
BuyTongueless
Lau Yee-Wa (tr. Jennifer Feeley)
A psychological thriller that sheds light on the current political situation in Hong Kong.
BuyOf Jade and Dragons
Amber Chen
A silkpunk fantasy about a girl who must disguise herself as a boy and enter the famed and dangerous Engineer’s Guild trials to unravel the mystery of her father’s murder.
BuyThe Night Ends with Fire
K.X. Song
A fantasy adventure inspired by the legend of Mulan that follows a young woman determined to choose her own destiny.
BuySoft Burial
A Novel
Fang Fang (tr. Michael Berry)
A literary portrait of historical trauma and the psychological toll of repressed violence, intercut through different generations, regions, and time periods.
BuySinophagia
A Celebration of Chinese Horror
Ed./Tr. Xueting Christine Ni
An anthology of chilling tales from contemporary China, translated into English for the very first time.
BuyThe Unfilial
Four Tragic Tales from Modern China
Yao Emei (tr. Honey Watson, Martin Ward, Olivia Milburn, Will Spence)
Four short stories shining a light on the crumbling foundations of the Chinese family unit.
The Running Flame
A Novel
Fang Fang (tr. Michael Berry)
A short novel exploring the difficulties of one woman shackled by patriarchal tradition against the backdrop of social change.
BuyElephant Herd
A Novel
Guixing Zhang (tr. Carlos Rojas)
A novel following a young Malaysian-Chinese man's journey upriver deep into the Sarawak rainforest of northwest Borneo in search of his uncle, the leader of a Communist guerilla group.
BuyTaiwan Travelogue
A Novel
Yang Shuang-zi (tr. Lin King)
A bittersweet story of love between two women, nestled in an exploration of language, history and power.
BuyFor now I am sitting here growing transparent
Yau Ching (tr. Chenxin Jiang)
A collection of poetry by the video artist and queer community organizer Yau Ching.
Buy