So I came across this: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/18/five-of-the-best-books-to-understand-modern-china and the headline piqued my interest but the books all seem of a rather particular slant. I am a fan of reading from a series of broad perspectives when trying to understand huge things and it's obviously a bit farcial to suppose the lives of 1.4 billion people are gripped by terror and pain in a country that somehow still chugs along.

Since of everywhere on lemmy I think I'm likely to get some pretty interesting recommendations here, if we can do it without igniting the china good/bad flame war what books would you recommend to give insight into "understanding modern china". That is phenomenally broad and vague so I'm keen to see anything from histories to fiction.

edit: thank you all for your opinions, I will endeavour to check most of them out and communicate my thoughts on them later. I'm especially interested in what the lives of boring arse people are like in different sectors of society (e.g. migrant underclass, party bureaucrate, officer worker, house wife, farmer etc) , if anything like that comes to mind.

  • Aquilae [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    7 months ago

    The Hexbear bulletins has a reading list with books on the history of various countries and lists these for China

    These books mostly focus on the post-Mao period up to the present day:

    • China’s Socialist Economy by Xue Muqiao (1981).
    • The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought by Wang Hui (2004).
    • Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the 21st Century by Giovanni Arrighi (2007).
    • The End of the Revolution: China and the Limits of Modernity by Wang Hui (2009).
    • Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra F. Vogel (2011).
    • China’s Twentieth Century: Revolution, Retreat, and the Road to Equality by Wang Hui (2016).
    • Marxism and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics by Jin Huiming (2017).
    • Afterlives of Chinese Communism: Political Concepts from Mao to Xi by Christian Sorace (2019).
    • I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China by Ramin Mazaheri (2019).
    • Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners by Roland Boer (2021).
    • China’s Great Road: Lessons for Marxist Theory and Socialist Practices by John Ross (2021).
    • Ten Crises: The Political Economy of China’s Development by Tiejun Wen (2021).
    • The East is Still Red - Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century by Carlos Martinez (2023).
    • China and the American Lake by Mark Tseng Putterman - an article (2021).
    • naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      ·
      7 months ago

      Thanks, although this seems very heavy on the politics of China's leadership rather than random shmuck life and culture I'll peruse them and see if anything catches my eye.

      Amusing aside: everytime I see "red china" I head Tom lehrer saying "China, who we call 'red China'" in his live performance of who's next.

      • Aquilae [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        7 months ago

        random shmuck life and culture

        Probably just watch some travel videos and Chinese tv shows for that. Like "In The Name of The People" as suggested by another comment.