Sparks: China's Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future

“It’s about engagement with history. It’s about recent history, the period since the Communist Party took power, although there are also interesting stories to tell about the politics of history in earlier periods. It’s very focused, and what drives it, in part, is how compelling the profiles of the individuals involved are—people who are making these very risky moves to unearth stories from the past that deserve to be told. These people are not really what we think of as dissidents: they’re people who are trying to work within the system, but within the crevices in the system. One of the most important things about the book is the way it pushes back against any idea of a brainwashed population that has either completely accepted official lines or given up on the idea of being able to push back against them.” Read more...

The Best China Books of 2023

Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Historian