chinese history book review

Best Chinese History Books

Uncover the past with the most enlightening chinese history books, each one a favorite among history buffs as collated from distinguished history blogs and book reviewers..

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The 11 best Chinese history books

Posted by Gayle Aggiss | Updated May 3, 2023 | Culture , Featured

Do you want to learn more about China? Then grab one of these Chinese history books and find yourself a cozy armchair!

Reading books about past and present China will give you a better chance to grasp the complexities of the country.

It will also sweep away the broad generalizations and media hysteria that seems to dominate a lot of the conversation.

So, if you want to dig deeper into Chinese history , mindset, and culture, here are some of the best books that will help you do it.

Note: I’ve included links to buy the paperback as I’m a bit old-fashioned. But you’ll find most are available in digital formats as well.

1. The Shortest History of China by Linda Jaivin

If you don’t know much about China or its history, then this is the book to start with.

China expert Linda Jaivin manages to squeeze thousands of years of stories into an enticing 250-page historical account.

What’s refreshing about Jaivin’s book is the regular storytelling of women, a group whom are often sidelined when it comes to Chinese history.

This Chinese history book packs a punch despite its size.

One of my favorite lines in the book is, “For much of China’s history, access to the bodies of young women was deemed the natural privilege of wealthy and powerful men, while pubic opinion condemned women who acted on their own desires”.

This really resonated with me.

As The Shortest History of China was only recently published, it also includes the Xi Jinping era and outlines where China is likely to lead the world.

So, make sure you add this little gem of a book to your reading list!

Get the paperback at Books-A-Million .

2. Modern China: A Very Short Introduction by Rana Mitter

This is an even shorter version of Chinese history, so it’s another easy-to-read book.

And, its compact size means you can pop it in your carry-on bag if you’re traveling to China .

It’s a great starting point to your explorations because it will give you the basics on China today so that you have a better idea of what to expect once you get there.

And once you know the basics, it’ll be easier for you to start reading more in-depth books on the topic!

3. The Columbia Guide to Modern Chinese History by R. Keith Schoppa

China is an ancient nation, filled with customs and beliefs that are completely different to what you would experience in the West.

It’s almost impossible for you to learn about and understand all that history and culture, which is why you need to cut it down into bite-sized pieces.

Discover China’s past in The Columbia Guide to Modern Chinese History.

This book on modern Chinese history looks at the last 220 years. It explores how the most crucial events in that time shaped the China of today.

The author is very clear and concise in the way he talks as well. This makes it one of the more easy-to-follow Chinese history books.

Get the hardback at Books-A-Million .

4. A History of China by John Keay

If you want more detail on China’s history and how China today came to be, then this is a great book to read.

It goes into detail about the dynasties, as well as Buddhism and Confucianism and how they led to today’s culture.

You’ll also get a good understanding of some of the most important events in China’s 5,000-year history. This includes wars, golden ages, technologies, philosophers and cultural revolutions.

Understanding this history is probably the best tool in a deeper, richer appreciation of China as a whole.

A History of China delves into religion.

Naturally, a book with this degree of depth isn’t a short one. In fact, it’s 535 pages long with mostly text. You’ll need to be a dedicated reader to get through it!

I suggest you dip in and out of the book or even flip to specific chapters. This will help you understand situations you may find yourself in while you’re in the country.

5. To Change China by Jonathan Spence

Throughout history, people have tried to change China. As a foreigner living and working there, it can be tempting to try to do the same.

You may see and experience things that seem very wrong to your Western sensibilities. You may even consider it your duty to speak out and change the system.

This book won’t try to dissuade you from doing that. After all, if you want to have a lasting impact on China, then it very well may be in positive ways.

Instead, the book illustrates the ways foreigners can help, the problems they may encounter, and the importance of respecting and honoring the local cultures at the same time.

For anyone who’s heading to China with dreams of solving medical or social problems there, this is a must-read.

6. China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wu-Dunn

Sometimes, the best way to learn about a country is by reading about the experiences of people who have been there and done that.

This book is written by New York Times journalists who explore the history of China through that lens.

They examine the most important events in recent Chinese history , such as the establishment of the communist government and its slow transition to capitalism. And they do it all with a firm belief in China’s bright history and its own potential.

China Wakes looks at the country’s recent history.

This is a great book for overcoming any biases and mistakes in the way you think about China.

And it’s not only very informative, it’s also written in a way that’s gripping and entertaining. Flipping through the pages feels like you’re reading a political thriller!

7. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li

If you’d rather learn about the culture of China through stories, then this novel consisting of 10 short stories is a good place to start.

It was written by a former Chinese resident who lived in Beijing and each story explores a specific aspect of China’s political and cultural landscape.

The Forbidden City, Beijing.

Here you will find vivid illustrations of the clash between old China and the new.

The people you read about will not only touch your heart but open up your mind to a very different way of living.

8. Unbound by John Shors

Everyone who visits China goes to see the Great Wall of China, and yet few of those travelers know about the history of this landmark .

You could read a history book on the topic of course, or you could look at it through the eyes of love.

In this historical fiction novel, Meng’s husband is forced to work on the Great Wall during the Ming Dynasty which lasted from 1368 to 1644. This was when the wall was at its strongest and when that protection was incredibly necessary.

Learn about the Great Wall from a fictional perspective.

This new perspective, far different from the crumbling defenses of today, is remarkably powerful and so is this story.

It not only explores the history of the wall, it also paints a vivid picture of life in the sixteenth century in Beijing, the role of women, and the uncertainty of the time.

As a fictional Chinese history book, it’s a story that won’t be forgotten. And when you’re finished with it, you’ll be surprised by how much you’ve learned from it.

9. Factory Girls by Leslie Chang

The roles of women in modern China are changing rapidly, and this book will give you a clear picture of just one manifestation of those changes.

Along with China’s rapid industrialization has come a dependence on building things and on having the workforce to meet that demand. This has created what’s known as the migrant class ; people who move to the cities in search of work and a better life.

The women who make this choice often start out in the factories. The freedoms they experience in this life is usually their first taste of liberation from the traditional lifestyles of their homes.

This novel explores these new lives, the trials and problems and the painful reality of working incredibly hard for very little. Just imagine trying to claw your way up a ladder that’s overcrowded with people in the same situation!

Despite the huge, sweeping issues, the novel explores these themes in very real, down-to-earth ways.

You follow the factory girls throughout their days: in the dorms, the karaoke bars, the eateries, and the hospitals. You get a firsthand view of what it’s really like to be a woman in China in the twenty-first century.

First published over 10 years ago, this book has become a favorite among modern Chinese history books.

10. The Party by Richard McGregor

The Communist Party has been the most powerful driving force in China for the last hundred years. That’s why you can’t understand the country without understanding its inner workings.

This reality is often hidden behind the wealth, influence and culture of the country, but the veil is torn away in The Party .

Learn about the CCP in this book by Richard McGregor.

The author explores the influence that communism has had in the past and how it still directs China in language that’s vivid and informed.

This book is the best summation of power in China. It shouldn’t be missed if you want to really understand how the country came to be.

11. China: Portrait of a People by Tom Carter

  If you want to read a book that’s lighter on text but just as illuminating, then try this photo journal.

The author backpacked through every province in China with the goal of representing the people through images.

He’s done a fantastic job at it.

China is represented brilliantly in photos (note: this image is not in the book).

From Fujian to Xinjiang, across 56 ethnic backgrounds, numerous customs and villages, he’s managed to capture the soul of the country.

It’s probably the most complete photo record of Chinese culture and diversity in existence. It’s a spectacular introduction to the country’s people.

Psst! Planning a trip to China?

Some of you might be learning about China (through books) before you head over there on vacation.

If this sounds like you, take a read of my article specifically about planning a trip to China which you should find beneficial.

And, keep in mind that all the major apps and websites are blocked on Wi-Fi in China, so you’ll need a VPN if you want to use the internet there.

Visit this page for recommended VPNs in China.

Go deeper by reading books about China’s history

China is huge and varied. So, if you want to understand its history and where it is today, you need to take an approach that’s just as varied.

Through rich stories, images and even political commentary, these Chinese history books will take you on a journey through this incredible country.

Hopefully they’ll whet your appetite and open your eyes so you can really appreciate China for what it is.

I hope you enjoy reading some of these books. Please let me know in the comments if I’ve missed any.

Now that you’ve learned about some of the best books on understanding Chinese history, delve into the best documentaries about China and then watch one!

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Gayle Aggiss

Gayle loves learning and is intensely curious about the world. This curiosity has driven her to travel and work overseas, including China and Vietnam. Gayle is from Perth, Western Australia. You can follow her on LinkedIn .

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Chinese history is very long, with silkworms already being bred in the 4th millennium BCE and the first evidence of writing—the oracle bone script—dating from the Shang dynasty in the 2nd millennium BCE. A lot has happened in the millennia since and getting a good overview of China's history can be daunting. For a wonderful short but granular introduction there's no better place to start than Linda Jaivin's The Shortest History of China , which ranges over the dynasties, the culture, the writing and the philosophy:

You can also find many history books in the section of our site focused on books on China . Our interviews dedicated to some specific topics in Chinese history follow below:

The best books on Maoism , recommended by Julia Lovell

Mao’s last revolution by michael schoenhals & roderick macfarquhar, maoism at the grassroots edited by jeremy brown and matthew d. johnson, red star over china by edgar snow, the bullet and the ballot box: the story of nepal's maoist revolution by aditya adhikari, a critical introduction to mao by timothy creek.

While researching Maoism, China expert Julia Lovell battled against two incorrect assumptions: “firstly that Maoism is a story of China; and secondly that Maoism is a story of the past.” Here she recommends five books for coming to grips with the global, still-relevant impact of Maoism.

The best books on The Silk Road , recommended by Valerie Hansen

The silk road: a new history by valerie hansen, sogdian traders: a history étienne de la vaissière (trans. james ward), diary: record of a pilgrimage to china in search of the law ennin (trans. e o reischauer), foreign devils on the silk road by peter hopkirk, silk roads: peoples, cultures, landscapes by susan whitfield.

From the Han dynasty to the time of Marco Polo, the routes connecting Asia, Africa and Europe—now known as the Silk Road—were responsible for enormous amounts of global trade. Yale historian Valerie Hansen , author of The Silk Road: A New History , introduces us to its rich history: “one of the reasons the Silk Road is a misnomer is that silk was not the main good moving along.”

From the Han dynasty to the time of Marco Polo, the routes connecting Asia, Africa and Europe—now known as the Silk Road—were responsible for enormous amounts of global trade. Yale historian Valerie Hansen, author of The Silk Road: A New History , introduces us to its rich history: “one of the reasons the Silk Road is a misnomer is that silk was not the main good moving along.”

The best books on The Cultural Revolution , recommended by Roderick MacFarquhar

Fractured rebellion by andrew walder, the chinese cultural revolution as history by joseph esherick, pickowicz & walder, proletarian power by elizabeth perry & elizabeth perry and li xun, the tragedy of lin biao by frederick teiwes & warren sun, blood red sunset by ma bo.

Countries do have to come to terms with their own history, and it's unhealthy that China has not yet come to terms with the Cultural Revolution, argues the West's leading scholar of the period, Roderick MacFarquhar . He chooses the best five books on the Cultural Revolution.

Countries do have to come to terms with their own history, and it’s unhealthy that China has not yet come to terms with the Cultural Revolution, argues the West’s leading scholar of the period, Roderick MacFarquhar. He chooses the best five books on the Cultural Revolution.

The best books on Modern China , recommended by Rana Mitter

Call to arms by lu xun, two kinds of time by graham peck, life and death in shanghai by nien cheng, deathsong of the river by su xiaokang and wang luxiang, the end of the revolution by wang hui.

In October 1911, China’s last imperial dynasty fell. The legacy of that revolution remains deeply ambiguous in today’s People’s Republic. China scholar Rana Mitter tells us about the country’s tumultuous changes from 1911 to the present day.

The best books on The Opium War , recommended by Julia Lovell

Narcotic culture by frank dikotter, lars laamann and zhou xun, opium, empire and the global political economy by carl trocki, the opium war by peter ward fay, the inner opium war by james polachek, britain’s gulag by caroline elkins.

The 19th century opium war marked the clash of the world’s great empires of the age – Britain and China. Historian Julia Lovell says its legacy of Chinese humiliation is still felt keenly in Beijing.

The best books on China Korea Relations , recommended by Odd Arne Westad

Chinese hegemony: grand strategy and international institutions in east asian history by feng zhang, sacred mandates: asian international relations since chinggis khan by timothy brook (ed.), the annals of king t'aejo: founder of korea's choson dynasty by choi byonghyon, tradition, treaties, and trade: qing imperialism and choson korea, 1850-1910 by kirk w. larsen, cold war crucible: the korean conflict and the postwar world by masuda hajimu.

China has had close political and cultural relations with Korea for centuries and the history of that relationship can shed light on China's approach to international relations more broadly—including in its imperial past. Yale historian Odd Arne Westad recommends the best books on China, Korea and the relationship between them.

China has had close political and cultural relations with Korea for centuries and the history of that relationship can shed light on China’s approach to international relations more broadly—including in its imperial past. Yale historian Odd Arne Westad recommends the best books on China, Korea and the relationship between them.

The best books on Tibet , recommended by Robert Barnett

Japanese agent in tibet by hisao kimura, a tibetan revolutionary by melvyn c goldstein, the dragon in the land of snows by tsering shakya, memories of life in lhasa under chinese rule by tubten khétsun, a blighted flower and other stories by riika j virtanen.

Discussions about Tibet are often reduced to arguments about China's right to run it. The Tibetologist says this obscures a much more subtle debate about what it means to be Tibetan in modern Tibetan society.

Discussions about Tibet are often reduced to arguments about China’s right to run it. The Tibetologist says this obscures a much more subtle debate about what it means to be Tibetan in modern Tibetan society.

The best books on June 4th, 1989 , recommended by Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Neither gods nor emperors by craig calhoun, the pro-democracy protests in china: reports from the provinces by jonathan unger, new ghosts, old dreams by geremie barme and linda jaivin, the people's republic of amnesia by louisa lim, the gate of heavenly peace by carma hinton.

In contrast to Eastern Europe, the 1989 protests in China did not lead to the overthrow of the Communist Party. But if China's leaders chose the right course on June 4th, 1989, why are they still frightened to come to terms with it? Sinologist and historian Jeffrey Wasserstrom picks the best books to understand events at Beijing's Tiananmen Square and around China on that hot summer night.

In contrast to Eastern Europe, the 1989 protests in China did not lead to the overthrow of the Communist Party. But if China’s leaders chose the right course on June 4th, 1989, why are they still frightened to come to terms with it? Sinologist and historian Jeffrey Wasserstrom picks the best books to understand events at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and around China on that hot summer night.

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases.

© Five Books 2024

Chinese History: A New Manual, Enlarged Sixth Edition (Fiftieth Anniversary Edition), Vols. 1 & 2

Publications

Endymion Wilkinson

Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series 127 & 128

Publication date: June 2022

Publisher’s website – Volume 1 Publisher’s website – Volume 2

About the book : Endymion Wilkinson’s bestselling  Chinese History: A New Manual  has been continuously in print for fifty years. It has achieved this unusual distinction because the author expanded its scope with each new edition. In the process it has grown from a modest research guide to Chinese imperial history into an encyclopedic, 1.7-million-word introduction to Chinese civilization and the primary and secondary resources and research problems for all periods of Chinese history. In recognition of its unique value, the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (France) awarded the third edition the  Stanislas Julien Prize , and in 2016, Peking University Press published the entire  Manual  in a three-volume Chinese edition.

The sixth edition of the  Manual  has been revised and expanded throughout to include the latest developments in digital tools and the two dozen ancillary disciplines essential for work on Chinese history. In addition, its temporal coverage has been extended to the death of Chairman Mao.

In celebration of a half century of continuous publication, the enlarged sixth edition consists of two volumes. Volume 1 covers topics ranging from Language, Education, and the Arts to Science, Technology, and the Environment. Volume 2 presents primary and secondary sources chronologically by period from the Neolithic to 1976.

View the full list of HYI monograph series publications

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An Insider Views China, Past and Future

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By Michiko Kakutani

• May 9, 2011

It’s been four decades since President Richard M. Nixon sent Henry A. Kissinger to Beijing to re-establish contact with China, an ancient civilization with which the United States, at that point, had had no high-level diplomatic contact for more than two decades. Since then the cold war has ended; the Soviet Union (a threat to both China and the United States and a spur to Sino-American cooperation) has come unwound; and economic reform in China has transformed a poverty-ridden, poorly educated nation into a great power that is playing an increasingly pivotal role in the globalized world.

Mr. Kissinger’s fascinating, shrewd and sometimes perverse new book, “On China,” not only addresses the central role he played in Nixon’s opening to China but also tries to show how the history of China, both ancient and more recent, has shaped its foreign policy and attitudes toward the West. While this volume is indebted to the pioneering scholarship of historians like Jonathan D. Spence, its portrait of China is informed by Mr. Kissinger’s intimate firsthand knowledge of several generations of Chinese leaders.

The book deftly traces the rhythms and patterns in Chinese history (its cycles of turning inward in isolationist defensiveness and outward to the broader world), even as it explicates the philosophical differences that separate it from the United States. Each country has a sense of manifest destiny, but “American exceptionalism is missionary,” Mr. Kissinger says. “It holds that the United States has an obligation to spread its values to every part of the world.”

China’s exceptionalism, in contrast, he says, is cultural: China does not proselytize or claim that its institutions “are relevant outside China,” yet it tends to grade “all other states as various levels of tributaries based on their approximation to Chinese cultural and political forms.”

Lurking beneath Mr. Kissinger’s musings on Chinese history is a not-so-subtle subtext. This volume, much like his 1994 book, “Diplomacy,” is also a sly attempt by a controversial figure to burnish his legacy as Nixon’s national security adviser and secretary of state. It is a book that promotes Mr. Kissinger’s own brand of realpolitik thinking, and that in doing so often soft-pedals the human costs of Mao’s ruthless decades-long reign and questions the consequences of more recent American efforts to press human-rights issues with the Chinese.

Some of the more revealing exchanges between Mr. Kissinger and Mao have already appeared in the 1999 book “The Kissinger Transcripts,” taken from the nongovernmental National Security Archive. Those documents show that Mr. Kissinger employed a good deal more flattery in his wrangling with foreign leaders than his personal accounts might suggest. A lot of the backstage maneuvering in the Nixon White House’s dealings with China will similarly be familiar in outline to readers of Margaret MacMillan’s “Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World” and William Bundy’s “Tangled Web: The Making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency.”

When it comes to talking about Chinese leaders he has met, Mr. Kissinger, the hardheaded apostle of realpolitik, can sound almost starry-eyed. His sympathy for these leaders is not that surprising, given his descriptions of them as practitioners of the same sort of unsentimental power politics he is famous for himself. This approach, he says, enabled China, “despite its insistent Communist propaganda, to conduct itself as essentially a geopolitical ‘free agent’ of the cold war,” making a tactical partnership with the United States in order to contain its fellow Communist country, the Soviet Union.

This sort of pragmatic self-interest on China’s part, Mr. Kissinger says, has continued. After 9/11, he writes: “China remained an agnostic bystander to the American projection of power across the Muslim world and above all to the Bush administration’s proclamation of ambitious goals of democratic transformation. Beijing retained its characteristic willingness to adjust to changes in alignments of power and in the composition of foreign governments without passing a moral judgment.”

Regarding the brutal crackdown on dissidents by the government of Deng Xiaoping at Tiananmen Square in 1989, Mr. Kissinger says that the American reaction left the Chinese puzzled: “They could not understand why the United States took umbrage at an event that had injured no American material interests and for which China claimed no validity outside its own territory.”

For that matter, Mr. Kissinger’s own take on Tiananmen and the Chinese government has a determinedly “on the one hand, on the other hand” feel: “Like most Americans, I was shocked by the way the Tiananmen protest was ended. But unlike most Americans, I had had the opportunity to observe the Herculean task Deng had undertaken for a decade and a half to remold his country: moving Communists toward acceptance of decentralization and reform; traditional Chinese insularity toward modernity and a globalized world — a prospect China had often rejected. And I had witnessed his steady efforts to improve Sino-American ties.”

Mr. Kissinger is even more chillingly cavalier about the tens of millions of people who lost their lives during Mao’s years in power and the devastating fallout of his Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. Mr. Kissinger writes about what he describes as a “poignant” scene in which “Nixon complimented Mao on having transformed an ancient civilization, to which Mao replied: ‘I haven’t been able to change it. I’ve only been able to change a few places in the vicinity of Beijing.’ ”

Mr. Kissinger then, startlingly, adds: “After a lifetime of titanic struggle to uproot Chinese society, there was not a little pathos in Mao’s resigned recognition of the pervasiveness of Chinese culture and the Chinese people.”

Buying into many of the myths Mao promoted about himself, Mr. Kissinger describes him as “the philosopher king.”

“Mao enunciated the doctrine of ‘continuous revolution,’ but when the Chinese national interest required it, he could be patient and take the long view,” he writes. “The manipulation of ‘contradictions’ was his proclaimed strategy, yet it was in the service of an ultimate goal drawn from the Confucian concept of da tong, or the Great Harmony.”

For some people, Mr. Kissinger acknowledges, “the tremendous suffering Mao inflicted on his people will dwarf his achievements.” But he also delivers this coldblooded rationalization: “If China remains united and emerges as a 21st-century superpower,” many Chinese may come to regard him as they do the early emperor Qin Shihuang, “whose excesses were later acknowledged by some as a necessary evil.”

The portraits Mr. Kissinger draws of Mao’s successors project an appreciative intimacy. He remembers Zhou Enlai as conducting “conversations with the effortless grace and superior intelligence of the Confucian sage.” He adds that the elegant Zhou — who would be “criticized for having concentrated on softening some of Mao’s practices rather than resisting them” — faced the classic quandary of the “adviser to the prince,” who must balance “the benefits of the ability to alter events against the possibility of exclusion, should he bring his objections to any one policy to a head.”

Of Deng Xiaoping, a “doughty little man with the melancholy eyes,” Mr. Kissinger reminds us that Deng and his family suffered greatly during the Cultural Revolution — he was exiled to perform manual labor, and his son, Mr. Kissinger writes, was “tormented by Red Guards and pushed off the top of a building at Beijing University” and denied admission to a hospital for his broken back. Upon his return to government, Deng worked to replace the Revolution’s emphasis on ideological purity with the values of “order, professionalism and efficiency,” and Mr. Kissinger credits him with fashioning the modernizations that would transform “Mao’s drab China of agricultural communes” into a bustling economic giant.

There are few new insights into Nixon here. Mr. Kissinger obliquely acknowledges what critics like the historian Robert Dallek have argued: that Nixon tried to use his initiatives with China and the Soviet Union to distract attention from his failures in Vietnam. Among the reasons Nixon’s trip to China occurred in the first place, Mr. Kissinger writes, were Mao’s desire to make “a move that might force the Soviets to hesitate before taking on China militarily” and Nixon’s eagerness “to raise American sights beyond Vietnam.”

Mr. Kissinger also says that the secrecy surrounding negotiations with China (“Nixon had decided that the channel to Beijing should be confined to the White House”) “nearly derailed the enterprise,” when an out-of-the-loop State Department dismissed an invitation Mao had made to Nixon in an interview as not serious, and described Chinese foreign policy as “expansionist” and “rather paranoiac.”

Although Mr. Kissinger does not delve into recent debates over the enormous amount of United States debt that China holds, or how an increasingly ascendant China could affect the rest of the world (the subject of books like Martin Jacques’s “When China Rules the World” and James Kynge’s “China Shakes the World”), he observes that President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao “presided over a country that no longer felt constrained by the sense of apprenticeship to Western technology and institutions,” and that the 2008 economic meltdown “seriously undermined the mystique of Western economic prowess” among the Chinese.

These developments, in turn, Mr. Kissinger argues, have prompted a “new tide of opinion in China — among the vocal younger generation of students and Internet users and quite possibly in portions of the political and military leadership — to the effect that a fundamental shift in the structure of the international system was taking place.”

Arguing that a cooperative United States-China relationship is “essential to global stability and peace,” Mr. Kissinger warns that were a cold war to develop between the countries, it “would arrest progress for a generation on both sides of the Pacific” and “spread disputes into internal politics of every region at a time when global issues such as nuclear proliferation, the environment, energy security and climate change impose global cooperation.” Mr. Kissinger, it should be noted, is chairman of Kissinger Associates Inc., an international consulting firm that does work with companies that have business interests in China.

“Relations between China and the United States,” he writes, “need not — and should not — become a zero-sum game.”

By Henry Kissinger

Illustrated. 586 pages. Penguin Press. $36.

Follow Michiko Kakutani on Twitter: @michikokakutani

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Chinese Historians

Chinese Historians in the United States

Chinese Historical Review

The Chinese Historical Review (ISSN 1547-402X) is a fully refereed and vigorously edited transnational journal of history and social sciences that is published biannually. The journal publishes original research on the history of China in every period, China’s historical relations with the world, the historical experiences of the overseas Chinese, as well as comparative studies of history and social sciences. Its Forum section features interviews with leading historians and discussion of issues concerning the profession of teaching and writing history.  Its Book Reviews section introduces recent historical scholarship published in Chinese generally unavailable to the English-speaking world.

The journal is published by the Chinese Historians in the United States, INC. (CHUS), which was established in 1987 and is now an affiliated society of the American Historical Association (AHA) and the Association of Asian Studies (AAS). The journal began its publication in 1987 under the title The Historians . In 1989 it was registered with the Library of Congress and began its publication as a refereed journal of history under the title The Chinese Historians (ISSN 1043-643X) until 2000. It adopted the current title when it resumed regular publication in 2004.

The past and current sponsors of the publication of the journal include: The Henry Luce Foundation, CHUS Membership Fund, State University of New York-Geneseo, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Lake Forest College, and various institutional and individual subscribers.

• Xiaobing Li (Editor-in-Chief)

Editorial Board:

• Alan Baumler , Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA
• Morris L. Bian , Auburn University, USA
• LaDonna Bowen , Georgia Institute of Technology, uSA
• Jian Chen , Cornell University, USA
• Benjamin A. Elman , Princeton University, USA
• Madeline Yue Dong , University of Washington at Seattle, USA
• Joshua Goldstein , University of South Carolina, USA
• Christopher Isett , University of Minnesota, USA
• Steven Levine , University of North Carolina Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
• Chang Liu , Fudan University, China
• Hanchao Lu , Georgia Institute of Technology
• Rana Mitter , Oxford University, UK
• Meing-te Pan , State University of New York at Oswego, USA
• Elizabeth Perry , Harvard University, USA
• Paul G. Pickowicz , University of California at San Diego, USA
• Yurl Pines , The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
• Ruth Rogask , Vanderbilt University, USA
• Qin Shao , The College of New Jersey, USA
• Richard J. Smith , Rice University, USA
• Jonathan D. Spence , Yale University, USA
• Stephen Uhalley , California University at San Francisco, USA
• Joanna Waley-Cohen , New York University, USA
• Gungwu Wang , National University of Singapore, Singapore
• Xi Wang , Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA
• Victor C. Xiong , Western Michigan University, USA
• Yuezhi Xiong , Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, China
• Guoqi Xu , University of Hong Kong, China
• Ping Yao , California State University at Los Angeles, USA
• Qiang Zhai , Auburn University at Montgomery, USA

Contact Information:

Please send all submissions, subscription orders, and correspondence to:

Email: [email protected] Website: http://tandfonline.com/toc/ytcr20/current

Member Benefits–Free Online Journal Access:

All CHUS members should have access to the journal by signing up on Taylor & Francis online .

Steps to Register for an Online Account :

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Five of the best books to understand modern China

From a poetic memoir of social repression to a study of the lasting impact of the Cultural Revolution – these titles are a good place to start if you want to know more about the country and its people

I t is the world’s second-biggest economy, the next big threat to global security and a country ruled by an authoritarian regime that is increasingly making its power felt beyond its borders. But the most important part of China is the population of 1.4 billion diverse, tricky and resilient people whose choices are often very distant from the decision-makers in Beijing. These books are an introduction to the forces that have shaped China’s recent past and the people living in its present.

Red Memory by Tania Branigan

What was the Cultural Revolution? The decade of mass killings, political purges and the ruthless assertion of power “is impossible to understand”, writes Branigan, the Guardian leader writer and former China correspondent. Nevertheless, it is central to understanding China today. Rather than focusing on a historical analysis of how such fervour and hatred tore across the country, Branigan focuses on the people whose lives were upended by that period of social remoulding. Crucially, she argues convincingly, the Cultural Revolution is not just a historical curiosity: its terror, and efforts to forget the depravity wreaked by campaign, continue to be felt.

Leftover Women by Leta Hong Fincher

When Hong Fincher first published her landmark book about gender inequality in China in 2014, China’s birthrate was 14 per 1,000 people. By January 2024, just after the updated 10th anniversary edition of Leftover Women was published, that number had halved . Understanding why more and more women are rejecting the social and political pressure to become mothers also requires understanding why Chinese women are so disenchanted with marriage. In accessible, entertaining prose, Leftover Women guides the reader through the economic and social inequalities embedded in marriages in China that are so off-putting for increasingly educated young women.

The Souls of China by Ian Johnson

In this lively and fascinating book by a veteran chronicler of grassroots China, Johnson explores the inner and outer lives of the hundreds of millions of people who claim adherence to some form of spirituality under the shadow of the officially atheist Chinese Communist party. As well as the Christians and Muslims who have a particularly hard time expressing their religious beliefs – especially the latter group who have seen their mosques razed and communities oppressed at an extraordinary scale in the past decade – Johnson explores the complex and often contradictory role of blended teachings from Buddhism, Taosim and Confucianism. The result is a humane portrait of Chinese society that reveals more about everyday life in China than any political text.

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Owlish by Dorothy Tse, translated by Natascha Bruce

This haunting “anti-fairytale” is about Prof Q, “a hack teacher in a debased, cultureless little city”. He embarks on an extramarital affair with a lifesize ballerina doll in a novel that is absorbing, erotic and at times nightmarish. Owlish, an allegory about Hong Kong, is set in the fictional world of Nevers, which is being remoulded by its more powerful neighbour, Ksana, with the help of obedient bureaucrats, such as the professor’s wife. But Prof Q’s love-blinkered ecstasy leaves him blissfully unaware of the changes happening around him, despite the protests of his students. Translated into English by Bruce, Tse’s evocative prose brings to life Nevers’ – and Hong Kong’s – rich cultural life as well as its changing political landscape.

Waiting to Be Arrested at Night by Tahir Hamut Izgil, translated by Joshua L Freeman

Understanding what life has been like in Xinjiang, the vast region of north-west China where Uyghurs and other mainly Muslim minorities have been subjected to a brutal regime of religious and social repression, is incredibly difficult. Few journalists are able to visit the region; those who have left are often fearful of speaking out because of concern for their relatives at home. So Izgil’s poetic memoir, evocatively translated by Freeman, is an important account. All the more so because it illustrates not just what it is like to have your every move and even your DNA monitored, but also the atmosphere of looming dread that permeates everyday life in Xinjiang.

• Five of the best

Most viewed

The Chinese backlash over Netflix’s 3 Body Problem, explained

Netflix is banned in China — part of the government’s ongoing efforts to limit both foreign influence and Chinese citizens’ access to information about their own country. But that hasn’t stopped Chinese viewers, as well as Chinese state media, from weighing in on its highly anticipated adaptation of the Hugo Award-winning 2008 Chinese sci-fi novel The Three-Body Problem . Many people aren’t happy, yet there’s more to this particular backlash than just fan disgruntlement.

The first of an esteemed trilogy sometimes known as Remembrance of Earth’s Past , the novel The Three-Body Problem is a high-concept fictionalization of a longstanding scientific enigma known as “the three-body problem.” It’s heavy on the science , and author Liu Cixin, a native of mainland China, takes a long view of existential problems that mirror those we’re currently grappling with today, most notably the ethics surrounding our response to advanced artificial intelligence .

One of the novel’s central themes is the question of who gets to decide the future for the rest of humanity. It takes an anti-authoritarian approach that’s bolstered by the author’s experience of authoritarianism in China. One of its central characters functions as a strong critique of the Communist Revolution, and the whole novel arguably critiques the modern-day Communist Party. This critique takes center stage, quite literally, in a controversial opening scene from the book that references a violent period of China’s history rarely shown in China itself.

Despite this, the novel The Three-Body Problem not only cleared China’s broad book ban on anti-government messaging (although before Xi Jinping ’s subsequent tightening of censorship across the cultural front) but has become beloved in its home nation. It won multiple awards and gets held up by many as an example of China’s literary excellence and as a major influence in the development of Chinese science fiction. In 2023, another acclaimed and lavish series adapting the book, Three Body , was released by Chinese streaming service Tencent (the show is also currently streaming with English subtitles on Viki ; the first two eps are also on YouTube ). Three Body has won praise from viewers at home and abroad for staying faithful to the book and its themes; on the popular review forum MyDramaList, for example, the Tencent series has a viewer rating of 8.3/10.

This is important context to understand the conversations that have taken place on Weibo and other Chinese social media platforms since the Netflix adaptation’s release on March 21. As the show continues to dominate Netflix ratings globally, many English-language media outlets have begun covering the “ polarised ” discussion on Chinese social media around the show — perhaps painting the situation as more complicated than it is. On Weibo, the state-run media account Global Times accused foreign media of inflating the negative reactions to the show in order to foment political drama and make Chinese viewers appear unreasonably nationalist.

It could be easy for an audience unfamiliar with Chinese media to assume that the Netflix adaptation is breaking through Chinese government censorship with a brave, controversial stance on the country’s past — but that’s not entirely true. While the government under Xi Jinping has drastically ramped up its restrictions on speech , this doesn’t paint a fully accurate picture of how everyday people in China interact with those restrictions. What’s fascinating about this 3 Body debate is how much it reveals about how Chinese viewers metabolize culture and cultivate their historical awareness.

Depictions of nationalistic outrage on Chinese social media are probably being exaggerated

The New York Times recently published a news column about it:

“Instead of pride and celebration, the Netflix series has been met with anger, sneer and suspicion in China. The reactions show how years of censorship and indoctrination have shaped the public perspectives of China’s relations with the outside world. They don’t take pride where it’s due and take offense too easily. They also take entertainment too seriously and history and politics too lightly.”

This is certainly a strong argument, and the author, who has spent years reporting from China, including covering its censorship system before, cites examples of criticisms. But a quick Weibo search for “ 3 body Netflix ” shows that it’s not the whole picture; it’s also easy to find Chinese viewers praising the show and criticizing it in equal parts. For example, one recent post celebrates the way the Netflix version has popularized Liu Cixin’s work and Chinese sci-fi to fans around the world. Another post embeds a British vlogger’s commentary on the flaws with the Netflix adaptation, underscoring that criticism of the show is universal.

Most of those criticisms would occur to anyone with a passing understanding of the book. Netflix’s changes make the storyline blander and more inexplicably British, deliberately erasing most of the Chinese characters and relocating the main action to London. The exception to this rule is the subplot surrounding Ye Wenjie, a traumatized scientist who grows up in the shadow of China’s brutal Cultural Revolution. Ye Wenjie is arguably a villain who serves as our primary reference point for understanding China. It’s unsurprising, then, that many Chinese people aren’t happy that an adaptation of a beloved work of Chinese science fiction has erased most of the book’s portrayal of Chinese scientific prowess, relocated the plot to another country, and turned the storyline into something primarily critical of the Chinese government.

The Times piece goes on to suggest that Chinese viewers have a dim grasp of what the Cultural Revolution — the violent decade of Mao Zedong’s rule between 1966 and 1976 — did to the country, but an example from the same column of a widely circulated article critical of the era complicates that point. Information about the Cultural Revolution sometimes does circulate — only to then be restricted:

Someone on social media recently reposted an old article about Ye Qisong, one of the founders of the study of physics in modern China. In 1967, around the time that the struggle session of the series took place, Mr. Ye, who shared the same family name of the physicist in the opening scene, was detained, beaten and forced to confess crimes he didn’t commit. He went crazy and wandered the streets in Beijing, begging for food and money. The article was circulated widely online before it was censored.

This anecdote highlights the complicated relationship between Chinese audiences and their government, which frequently turns thorny despite the best efforts of the CCP to control and censor what media and information citizens have access to.

This goes double when it comes to Chinese historical events. Chinese social media influencers regularly amplify and encourage celebration and commemoration of various historical events, but only as they relate to a vision of a unified China, supporting the social and military goals of the CCP.

Yet this performed patriotism in no way means that Chinese citizens are unaware of the darker parts of their history; witness one Weibo user who described being stunned and impressed by the opening of the Netflix series, with its historically accurate, unflinching depiction of the Cultural Revolution. Such reactions undercut US-centric media’s tendency to pigeonhole Chinese citizens as brainwashed or unquestioning of CCP dogma.

The conflict at the heart of this is arguably China versus its history

In all three versions of the story, the brutality of the Cultural Revolution directly impacts the future of humanity through Ye Wenjie. As a child, Ye Wenjie watches her father, a leading physicist, become a victim of the early Communist Party’s anti-science movement. Because of her association with her father, she’s forced to do years of hard labor, then recruited into a top-secret scientific program. She’s betrayed repeatedly by other people, all of whom are acting under the auspices of the government to entrap and/or spy on her. Over time, her disillusionment with humanity grows to a breaking point that leads her to make a fatal decision on behalf of all mankind.

In other words, the novel and each of its adaptations are clear about the way the Cultural Revolution persecuted the innocent and spawned decades of generational trauma. But each of them portrays the actual violence slightly differently. The English translation of Cixin’s novel opens with an unforgettable scene in which Ye Wenjie’s father is dragged onto a stage before an incensed crowd of communist supporters, pressured by his wife to renounce basic theories of physics, and then beaten to death for his refusal by a group of overzealous teenage party members — all while a horrified Ye Wenjie watches from the audience.

In the original Chinese version of Cixin’s novel, the scene remains entirely the same, but his editor, fearing censorship, asked him to move this section to the middle of the novel rather than the beginning, perhaps hoping that relocating the passage would ameliorate the sting of its criticism. This apparently worked, but when fellow sci-fi writer Ken Liu translated Three-Body into English, Cixin gave him permission to put the passage back at the beginning of the book — which is how millions of readers around the globe experienced it.

The Netflix adaptation follows the English version of the novel: Ye Wenjie’s father is violently murdered before our eyes, and this underpins everything else that happens in the drama.

The earlier 2023 adaptation from the Chinese streaming service Tencent, however, is an almost page-for-page literal adaptation of the English-language version of the novel in every respect except this one. Instead of showing the public execution of Wenjie’s dad, in the Tencent version, he’s arrested and betrayed by members of his own family, and he still loses his esteemed career as a physicist — but he’s ultimately never executed, and it’s implied instead that he died in ignominy with only Ye Wenjie at his side. This is a stark change that arguably waters down the impact of the book, but we still fully understand that the Cultural Revolution victimized Ye Wenjie and her father; decades later, when other characters learn what she went through, they’re appalled. Both the Tencent and Netflix versions faithfully adapt Ye Wenjie’s later harsh life in the labor camp and the subsequent betrayals she experiences.

While the more violent aspects of the regime are often erased, depictions of the bleakness and misguided aims of the Cultural Revolution have become acceptable in Chinese pop culture. For example, last year’s widely acclaimed drama The Youth Memories dealt with the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution on China’s “ lost generation ,” who were deprived of access to education after the communist takeover. The show takes a lightly but overtly critical stance toward the Revolution’s ban on higher education and treats the lifting of the ban as a major social leap forward.

The problems of Netflix’s 3 Body Problem have more to do with the Netflixian tendency to make every production feel colorless, flat, and forgettable than with Chinese viewers. A look at Tencent’s version, or at shows like The Youth Memories , can give a much more nuanced idea of how Chinese audiences understand their past.

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Modern China: A Captivating Guide to Modern Chinese History (Asian Countries) Paperback – February 10, 2023

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• The collapse of the Qing dynasty in early 20th-century China
• Influential characters from the early days of the Chinese Republic
• Events that shaped the first thirty years of the 20th century in China and eventually led to the First United Front
• The rise of communism and the formation of the CCP
• The impact of World War II, Japanese occupation, and the Chinese Civil War
• Mao Zedong, the communist victory, and the fleeing of the Nationalist government to the island of Taiwan
• The formation of the People’s Republic of China and the socioeconomic policies of the 1950s
• The Great Leap Forward and its results for the Chinese people
• The Cultural Revolution, Mao’s death, and the development of the country from the late 1970s
• And much, much more!
• Part of series Asian Countries
• Print length 112 pages
• Language English
• Publication date February 10, 2023
• Dimensions 6 x 0.26 x 9 inches
• ISBN-10 1637167814
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Captivating History (February 10, 2023)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 112 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1637167814
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1637167816
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.8 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.26 x 9 inches
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