• The Best China Books of 2023 - Sparks: China's Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future by Ian Johnson
  • The Best China Books of 2023 - Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution by Tania Branigan
  • The Best China Books of 2023 - Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food by Fuchsia Dunlop
  • The Best China Books of 2023 - Made in Taiwan: Recipes and Stories from the Island Nation by Clarissa Wei
  • The Best China Books of 2023 - Waiting to Be Arrested at Night: A Uyghur Poet's Memoir of China's Genocide by Tahir Hamut Izgil and translated by Joshua Freeman

The Best China Books of 2023, recommended by Jeffrey Wasserstrom

The rise of China has led to an ever broader range of books about the country becoming available in English. There’s also a greater focus on its diversity, which the country’s Communist leadership likes to downplay. Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a professor of Chinese history at UC Irvine, talks us through his favourite books of 2023, from painful historical episodes to the harsh policies targeting a largely Muslim ethnic group in Xinjiang today—by way of two lighter books that focus on food and cooking.

  • The best books on Xi Jinping - Xi: A Study in Power by Kerry Brown
  • The best books on Xi Jinping - The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State by Elizabeth Economy
  • The best books on Xi Jinping - Xi Jinping: The Hidden Agendas of China’s Ruler for Life by Willy Lam
  • The best books on Xi Jinping - Dictatorship by Degrees: Xi Jinping in China by Steven Feldman
  • The best books on Xi Jinping - The Politics of the Core Leader in China: Culture, Institution, Legitimacy, and Power by Xuezhi Guo

The best books on Xi Jinping, recommended by Olivia Cheung

Despite his own and his family’s suffering under Maoism, China’s president, Xi Jinping, has turned his back on some of the reforms of the past four decades, dismantling safeguards designed to ensure that some of the disasters of that era never happen again. Olivia Cheung, a research fellow at SOAS and co-author of The Political Thought of Xi Jinping, recommends books to better understand China’s leader and his quest to build a new world order—led by China and admired by all.

  • The Best China Books of 2021 - The Shortest History of China: From the Ancient Dynasties to a Modern Superpower by Linda Jaivin
  • The Best China Books of 2021 - Monkey King: Journey to the West Wu Cheng'en and Julia Lovell (translator)
  • The Best China Books of 2021 - The Chinese Communist Party: A Century in Ten Lives Edited by Timothy Cheek, Klaus Mühlhahn and Hans van de Ven
  • The Best China Books of 2021 - Land of Big Numbers by Te-Ping Chen
  • The Best China Books of 2021 - In the Camps: China's High-Tech Penal Colony by Darren Byler

The Best China Books of 2021, recommended by Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Whether you want to read the entire history of China in 250 pages or find out what’s going on right now in Xinjiang, enjoy a new translation of a 16th-century fantasy novel or delve into contemporary short stories, 2021 has been another good year for books about China. Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Chancellor’s Professor of History at UC Irvine, recommends his favourite China books of 2021.