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China and the Mediterranean
The Middle Kingdom and the Middle Sea have had contact for millennia. Two books explore how China has viewed the Mediterranean, and the state of...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Jonathan Cheng on North Korea’s Past and China’s Present
The Wall Street Journal's China bureau chief, author of a new biography of Kim Il Sung, spoke at Asia Society about the DPRK's ruling dynasty...
Colonial Adventures
When a British diplomat was found murdered in southwest China in 1875, near the Burmese border, a political spat was triggered that would have wide-ranging...
Keeping The Party Going
A French-language biography shows how Hua Guofeng, the oft-maligned successor to Mao, was pivotal in bridging the Party from the madness of the Cultural Revolution...
A Chinese Intellectual in Oxford
In the 1930s Chiang Yee, a Chinese writer and artist, moved to England. His work, and that of his wartime circle of Chinese literati, deserve...
How Communism Won China
The CCP presents its victory in 1949 as historical inevitability, hard-won after years of struggle. A new book suggests it had more to do with...
Did Peng Zhen Rebel Against Mao?
A startling Chinese-language biography of Mao’s one-time enforcer reveals the folly of hoping that Party officials will break ranks — and the importance of revisionist...
