Empire of Engineers
China has been a nation of engineers, from imperial to communist rule. America’s lawyerly society could learn something from that — but civil and social...
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Sima Qian: Records of the Grand Historian
History is supposedly written by the victors. Sima Qian, author of China's original historical classic, showed it could also be written by the condemned.
Ill Winds In Tibet
A banned Tibetan novel, now published in English, recounts the devastation of Mao's campaigns in the wake of the Amdo Rebellion of 1958.
Ep. 24: China Conspiracy Theories
From Covid as a bioweapon to Chinese soldiers infiltrating America, Alexander Boyd discusses the right-wing conspiracy theories that lead our ranking of bestselling China books.
The Trouble with Chinese Cookbooks
Despite the difficulty of translating Chinese cuisine for Western readers, Chinese cookbooks continue to sell. But just as their form has changed over the decades,...
What America Reads About China
Conspiracy theories and alarmism about Cold War redux are the best selling China books on Amazon.com. We read them so you don’t have to.
Sex Sells
A book on prostitution in China asks sex workers how they see the industry, the state and themselves.
Ep. 23: Mark Kitto on Shanghai in the 2000s
The author and former media mogul explains why he chose fiction as the best way to capture Shanghai’s go-go years in his new novel.
What Happened to China Travel Guides?
Guidebooks for China boomed from the 1980s to the 2010s. Then the Covid pandemic hit. With fewer visitors, and travel guides going out of print...
What China’s Reading: Amateur Writing
After a plagiarism scandal upended China’s literati, a spate of bestselling books published by amateur writers has changed what Chinese readers consider as literature.
Who Will Be the Next Dalai Lama?
The Dalai Lama, who just turned 90, writes in his memoir that he will reincarnate in the “free world.” But will his political, religious and...
Jane Gardam: The Old Filth Trilogy
A clever skewering of British colonials in pre-handover Hong Kong became a best-seller for its portrait of imperial ruin and class jockeying.