Books by Linda Jaivin

“It’s about 250 pages, which for several thousand years of history is not bad. Jaivin’s a very talented writer, who knows China well, and from a variety of vantage points…The most challenging thing for a book like this is to do justice to both continuities and ruptures. She doesn’t fall into the trap of an ‘unchanging China’ idea. One nice visual touch is that most chapters have a map. It’s a map of what now comes into our mind when we hear the word China, and she shows how much or how little—and it’s often very little—of that physical space was actually controlled by the dynasty in power at the time” Read more...

The Best China Books of 2021

Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Historian

“New Ghosts, Old Dreams: Chinese Rebel Voices is a series of collections of speeches and writings of the time, pulled together by Geremie Barmé and Linda Jaivin. It’s an unusually creative and varied contribution. It brings in artistic currents, it brings in some voices from history — the figures from China’s past that rebels in 1989 found appealing. It’s an unusual book, it’s more of a collage than a straightforward collection of documents, but even that unwieldiness helps capture something significant about the movement. It was partly carefully reasoned speeches, partly rock and roll, partly youth movement, partly intellectual counter-culture movement — as well as a more straightforwardly political movement.” Read more...

The best books on June 4th

Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Historian