Looking for a little summer reading? This week Sinica sorts the wheat from the chaff with a massive review of books on China. Our discussion touches on a everything from Chinese fiction to non-fiction academic works on Chinese politics, economics and history. There's a good selection here and a combative discussion: we'll tell you what we love, and what we hate and why....Joining Kaiser in the studio is Gady Epstein, Beijing bureau chief for Forbes magazine, Qing historian and popular blogger Jeremiah Jenne and
China public relations expert Will Moss. And rounding out the in-studio discussion we have digital postcards from a number of other Sinica contributors you'll remember from previous episodes: Jonathan Watts, Beijing-based correspondent for The Guardian; Sinica regular Jeremy Goldkorn; Kathleen McLaughlin, a prolific reporter for the Bureau of National Affairs and Global Post; and David Moser, all-around renaissance man and current Academic Director for CET Beijing.If you enjoy this podcast, be sure to share your thoughts in the comments section, or by writing us at sinica@popupchinese.com. And remember, to subscribe to the Sinica show through RSS, just open up iTunes, click on the "Advanced" menu and select the option "Subscribe to Podcast". When prompted, copy the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica into the box. If you'd like to download this mp3 directly from our site you can also grab it as a standalone mp3 file. Enjoy!
Basic Account
Contemporary Politics:Philip Pan - Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China; Susan Shirk - Fragile Superpower: How China's Internal Politics Could Derail Its Peaceful Rise; Richard McGregor - The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers; Jeffrey Wasserstrom - China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know; James Kynge - China Shakes the World; Martin Jacques - When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order; Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao - Will the Boat Sink the Water: The Life of China's Peasants; Ian Johnson - Wild Grass: Three Portraits of Change in Modern ChinaBusiness and Economics:Tim Clissold - Mister China: A Memoir; Paul Midler - Poorly Made in China: An Insider's Account of the Tactics Behind China's Production Game; Yasheng Huang - Capitalism with Chinese CharacteristicsModern History:Hugh Trevor Roper - Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhouse; Joseph Levenson - Confucian China and its Modern Fate; Minford and Lau - Classical Chinese Literature; Jonathan Spence - Treason By the Book, The Search for Modern China, The Gate of Heavenly Peace; Immanuel Hsu - The Rise of Modern China; Philip Kuhn - Soulstealers: The Chinese Socery Scare of 1768; Kenneth Pomeranz - The Great Divergence; Paul A. Cohen - Discovering History in China; Jim Mann - About Face and The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression