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The Bones Remember

Three new books grapple with the suppressed histories of modern China, from the Cultural Revolution to the Covid pandemic. But for every state effort to...

The Shadow of Chiang Kai-shek

China’s nationalist former leader has a mixed legacy. Two new books present him in a revisionist light — but what inheritance did the Generalissimo really...

A Contested Century

In China, the 19th century is presented as an era of national humiliation. Two new books and an exhibition attempt to humanize it. But who...

A Spark Extinguished

At the height of the Great Famine in 1960, a group of students exiled to the countryside launched a magazine that dared to tell the...

Mao to Now

Communist China, once all but impenetrable, opened up only to tighten politically again. Has Xi circled back to the Mao era? And what can we...
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