Recommendations from our site
“It positions the Mongols as this kind of in-touch-with-nature, fierce, warrior people, like wolves, and the Han as these settled ‘sheeple.’” Read more...
The best books on Minority Survival in China
James Palmer, Foreign Correspondent
“Wolf Totem contains certain things that have universal romantic appeal: wolves, tribesmen, and so on. But the message that central Chinese policies have been catastrophic for the people who were China’s neighbours – and who are now incorporated into China – very much needed to be said. And it was a way of criticising the party without it being about Han China. But it spoke for a lot of what had happened in Han China too.” Read more...
The best books on China’s Environmental Crisis
Isabel Hilton, Journalist
Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong is perhaps one of the least historically accurate books on this list, but has been recommended twice on Five Books, suggesting it nonetheless carries an important message. It was a huge bestseller in China. As China expert Isabel Hilton put it, “Wolf Totem contains certain things that have universal romantic appeal: wolves, tribesmen, and so on. But the message that central Chinese policies have been catastrophic for the people who were China’s neighbours – and who are now incorporated into China – very much needed to be said.”
