After the Chinese Civil War, the Kuomintang imposed authoritarian rule on Taiwan in the name of anticommunism. The White Terror, as martial law and state repression were known, would last for decades, casting a pall of uncertainty and fear over Taiwanese society—and its legacies still haunt Taiwan today. Kaori Lai’s Portraits in White explores everyday life under the White Terror, illuminating how the violence of martial law pervades even the most mundane moments.The book ...

Where statehood is contested, questions of identity and territory define the political landscapeDespite maintaining de facto sovereignty, states like Taiwan find themselves unrecognized in today’s international system because another power claims the state as part of their territory. This fraught status, in turn, significantly affects the domestic politics of these places.Lev Nachman’s exploration of Taiwan’s political landscape after the 2014 Sunflower Mov...

Where statehood is contested, questions of identity and territory define the political landscapeDespite maintaining de facto sovereignty, states like Taiwan find themselves unrecognized in today’s international system because another power claims the state as part of their territory. This fraught status, in turn, significantly affects the domestic politics of these places.Lev Nachman’s exploration of Taiwan’s political landscape after the 2014 Sunflower Mov...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERAn extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships – and the story of one woman’s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom.As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and...

No one in the twentieth century had a greater impact on world history than Deng Xiaoping. And no scholar is better qualified than Ezra Vogel to disentangle the contradictions embodied in the life and legacy of China’s boldest strategist—the pragmatic, disciplined force behind China’s radical economic, technological, and social transformation.

An eye-opening account of life inside North Korea—a closed world of increasing global importance—hailed as a “tour de force of meticulous reporting” (The New York Review of Books), with a new afterword that revisits these stories—and North Korea more broadly—in 2022, in the wake of the pandemicNATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALISTIn this landmark addition to the literature of totalitarianism, aw...

Premier Zhao Ziyang reveals the secret workings of China's government behind the Tiananmen massacre—and why he was deposed for trying to stop it.Prisoner of the State is the story of Premier Zhao Ziyang, the man who brought liberal change to China and who was dethroned at the height of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 for trying to stop the massacre. Zhao spent the last years of his life under house arrest. An occasional detail about his life would sl...

The magnificent follow-up to Wild Swans, the multimillion copy, internationally bestselling sensation that traces the history of modern China through the true stories of three generations of courageous women in one family.“AT THE AGE OF FIFTEEN MY GRANDMOTHER became the concubine of a warlord general . . .” So begins Jung Chang’s epic family memoir, Wild Swans, which defines a generation. The book ends in 1978, when Deng Xiaoping opened the door of Communi...

A Project Syndicate Best Read of the YearOn the centennial of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, the definitive history of how Mao and his successors overcame incredible odds to gain and keep power.Mao Zedong and the twelve other young men who founded the Chinese Communist Party in 1921 could hardly have imagined that less than thirty years later they would be rulers. On its hundredth anniversary, the party remains in com...

Winner of the Lionel Gelber PrizeNational Book Critics Circle Award FinalistAn Economist Best Book of the Year | A Financial Times Book of the Year | A Wall Street Journal Book of the Year | A Washington Post Book of the Year | A Bloomberg News Book of the Year | An Esquire China Book of the Year | A Gates Notes Top Read of the YearPerhaps no one in the twentieth century ...

A New York Times Notable book, this memoir by a journalist who lived in a small city in China is "a vivid and touching tribute to a place and its people" ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review).In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remar...

Xi Jinping has proven to be one of the most transformative political leaders of the twenty-first century. After a long career that began at the village level, he became General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and China's paramount leader in 2012. Few expected what would come next: a sweeping restructuring of China's political economy and political culture which included anti-corruption campaigns against the Party, and a full recalibration of China's relations with the outside worl...