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...
Peter Fleming: News from Tartary
The British adventurer’s 1936 account of his journey across the Tibetan Plateau and Xinjiang shows its age but remains a classic of travel writing.
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...
China Books Review Launch Event
Three generations of China writers discussed how the nation, and the way outsiders observe it, has changed from the 1960s to today.
Ep. 1: Chinese Fiction in the Reform Era
When China opened up in the 1980s, how did fiction writers respond to their new-found — but fragile — freedoms of expression? The China Books...
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...
How to Deal with the Chinese Revolution
In a 1966 essay, the American historian and father of Chinese Studies reflects on centuries-old cultural and political differences in the (then) early days of...