Sign up for our newsletter to be notified of new posts!
A New World Disorder?
With Pax Americana crumbling, many countries in the Global South are turning to Pax Sinica as an alternative. So what are Chinese thinkers' vision for...
The Perfect Dictatorship?
A new book argues that “smart authoritarianism” enabled China's economic growth while keeping draconian control over its society. But is it really possible for the...
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...
Xiang Biao on a Society at the Edge
An anthropologist with a wide youth following and a knack for popularizing academic terms explains how China’s stratified society led to social malaise amid economic...
The Totalitarian Gene
A new theory of China’s political DNA advances a dark thesis: that totalitarianism is institutionally encoded in the nation-state, and cannot be reformed.
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...
Sins of the Father
Xi Zhongxun, one of China’s early communist revolutionaries, tried to balance reformist instincts with loyalty to the Party. His failure left an indelible mark on...
What Happened to “Engagement” with China?
Since 1972, the U.S. has hoped that engaging with China would benefit both nations. That dream has burst. A new book performs an autopsy on...
Dan Wang on Engineers vs. Lawyers
The technology analyst discusses his new book "Breakneck," explaining what America's lawyerly society could learn from China's quest to engineer the future.
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...
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.
