Roberts, John Morris (1997). A Short History of the World. Oxford University Press. p.272. ISBN 0-19-511504-X. Archived from the original on 25 November 2022. A learned, wise, wonderfully written single volume history of a civilisation that I knew I should know more about' Tom Holland On that note, your last book choice is In the Camps by Darren Byler. Presumably, the book is about what’s been going on in Xinjiang. The Financial Times review says it “evokes the shadow of concentration camps—with the added cruelty of a 21st-century surveillance system.” Tell me what it’s describing and why it’s important to read this book.

Akbar, Arifa (17 September 2010). "Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years' ". The Independent. London . Retrieved 30 October 2010. It’s a dark story: there’s no way around that. But he is somebody who—to return to the theme—fills his book with real people. He’s sensitive to things like poetry, which is incredibly important as a form of expression among Uyghurs, both within the PRC and now in exile. You’re not simply reading a catalogue of human rights abuses. It’s the story of a slide toward a very dystopian daily life. Gernet, Jacques (1996). A History of Chinese Civilization. Cambridge University Press. pp. 126–127. ISBN 978-0-521-49781-7.Masterful and engrossing...well-paced, eminently readable and well-timed. A must-read for those who want – and need – to know about the China of yesterday, today and tomorrow' Peter Frankopan Leadership Strategies, Economic Activity, and Interregional Interaction: Social Complexity in Northeast China, p.89 When we examine China in the post-Mao era, we often focus on the booming urbanisation, consumerism, technology and mega-companies. But what about the religion and spirituality of China? This topic is crucial for understanding the complex fabric of modern China. Ian Johnson masterfully uncovers what happened to China’s spirituality after the end of the Cultural Revolution.

Darren Byler is an anthropologist who has significant on the ground experience and has been doing ethnographic work. He also just published a more scholarly book with Duke University Press, Terror Capitalism, which is very good on related fieldwork but written for other specialists. Yu Hua says “If I were to try to attend each and every aspect of modern China, there would be no end to this endeavour, and the book would go on longer than The Thousand and One Nights. So I limit myself to just ten words.” With this foundation, Yu Hua covers Chinese culture, history, politics and society. He opens up the mysteries of modern China by sharing a witty and refreshing Chinese perspective. As one of the country’s most famous contemporary writers, you can’t miss reading this masterpiece. It’s one of those books that if you grow up in China, you know the story, even if you haven’t read the book. It’s a bit like Alice in Wonderland or the story of Romeo and Juliet if you’re growing up in England or America. Even if you’ve never seen Romeo and Juliet, you still know the characters, somebody can refer to Romeo and it means something. After Emperor Wu the empire slipped into gradual stagnation and decline. Economically, the state treasury was strained by excessive campaigns and projects, while land acquisitions by elite families gradually drained the tax base. Various consort clans exerted increasing control over strings of incompetent emperors and eventually the dynasty was briefly interrupted by the usurpation of Wang Mang. Boltz, William G. (February 1986). "Early Chinese Writing, World Archaeology". Early Writing Systems. 17 (3): 420–436.

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Xu, Pingfang (2005). The Formation of Chinese Civilization: An Archaeological Perspective. Yale University Press. p.281. ISBN 978-0-300-09382-7. Bagley, Robert (1999). "Shang Archaeology". In Loewe, Michael; Shaughnessy, Edward L. (eds.). The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-47030-8.