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Frank Dikötter on the Rise of the Party
The historian talks about the early days of the Chinese Communist Party, and how they prevailed in 1949, in a China Books Review book talk...
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Tiananmen in Fiction
After 37 years, the Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown of 1989 have been preserved in novels as much as in memory. But does the Anglophone...
Murder in Hong Kong with Simon Elegant
The Hong Kong-born novelist and journalist talks us through his new novel "City on Fire," a whodunnit thriller set against the 2019 protests.
China’s Workers’ Literature Revival
Once a socialist genre beloved of Mao, laborers’ or “battler” literature has seen a revival in the era of the gig economy. Two new books...
Xu Zhiyuan on Chinese Intellectuals
A journalist, author, bookstore owner and vlogger talks about the legacy of Liang Qichao, the changing nature of China’s intellectual scene, and whether studying history...
Love is a Losing Game
A new documentary on young Chinese men’s romantic struggles shows the underbelly of a society where the winners take all.
Endymion Wilkinson’s China Bookshelf
The sinologist and former diplomat walks us through his teak-wood bookshelves on the coast of the Gulf of Thailand, and recommends five books out of...
The Bomb is Back
The myth of China's nuclear restraint obscures the dangers of its rapidly expanding arsenal. A trio of recent books take us from the bomb’s origins...
Ancient Chinese Politics with Daniel Bell
The Legalists and Confucians still run the show in today’s China, argues a scholar of classical Chinese thought — but the Mohists and Daoists still...
Mao’s Doctor Knew Too Much
The memoirs of Li Zhisui, Mao Zedong’s personal physician, tell a life of fatty pork and Daoist sex magic — and explain how to embalm...
Changing China
Five new books deal with efforts to transform China: from the conquests of the Warring States to nationalist internet fantasies, all the way to campaigns...
2026 Book Prize: Announcing the Winners
Find out who won our two $10,000 awards in the Baifang Schell Book Prize, for nonfiction and literature from or on China and the Sinophone...
