Shanghai: The Story of China's Most Dynamic City (Michael Dillon)

Michael Dillon's Shanghai: The Story of China's Most Dynamic City is an engaging look at the modern history of one of the world's most influential urban centers. Dillon has an extensive expertise in Chinese history and lived there for some time. He traces Shanghai's remarkable journey from a modest fishing settlement to a global financial and cultural powerhouse, with the brunt of his focus starting in the 1840’s with the end of the Opium Wars and the opening of Shanghai to foreigners. Rather than presenting a simple chronological account, he shows how the city's identity has been shaped by commerce, foreign influence, political revolution, and rapid economic growth. This broad perspective makes the book accessible to both general readers and those with a deeper interest in Chinese history.

Shanghai has been a city of contradictions. It’s been mostly cosmopolitan for much of the past 200 years, yet also revolutionary during the Cultural Revolution. Dillon examines the wealth and innovation that define the modern city while also acknowledging the inequality, organized crime, and political tensions that were ever present.

Overall, Shanghai is an informative and compelling study that successfully captures the city's rich past and its continuing role in shaping China's future. It is highly recommended for readers interested in Chinese history and urban development. 

MY RATING: 4

Conquering the North (John Man)

John Man’s Conquering The North: China, Russia, Mongolia, 2,000 Years of Conflict is a compelling and richly detailed study of the historical conflict over the Mongolian Steppe, fought between the Mongol people, Russia, and China. Man’s historical book focuses on the frontier zones that shaped empires, identities, and power over many centuries. His book brings clarity and attention to a region that is often overlooked in popular history, showing how geography, culture, and strategy combined to define the fate of not just these three nations but arguably the entire world.

The book traces the long contest between sedentary Chinese states and the nomadic peoples of the north, particularly the Mongols, whose mobility and military skill repeatedly reshaped the balance of power. Man explains how the rise of the Mongol Empire transformed Eurasia, and how Chinese dynasties sought to defend themselves through walls, diplomacy, and cultural assimilation. The emergence of Russia as a northern imperial force in the 17th Century adds a further layer, creating a three sided-struggle marked by shifting alliances.

Although the subject is complex, Man maintains momentum and coherence throughout. Conquering The North succeeds as both a history of power politics and a study of how frontiers shape world history and can change. It offers valuable insight into forces that continue to influence relations in the region today.

MY RATING: 4.5

Sparks: China's Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future (Ian Johnson)

Sharing untold but true stories of a nation's past is important and necessary to help it learn about itself. While this can usually happen in America with little fanfare, it is much more dangerous in places where the state exerts full control. Ian Johnson's Sparks: China's Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future details the stories of China's underground historians and their quest for truth, sometimes at the price of everything they have.

Chinese officials have oscillated over the seven decades of Communist control. In Mao's time and increasingly in Xi's time as leader, expressing an opinion different from the party line could find people ostracized or worse. Telling the stories of those who dissented, or weren't ideologically "pure" enough, was a fraught exercise that could end in prison time or death (see the Cultural Revolution as an example of this). Sparks highlights the brave historians who look for ways to bend and ebb around Chinese state control to ensure stories can be told.

Johnson is greatly effective at detailing several key points in Chinese history: the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Tiannemen protests, and the early days of the pandemic in Wuhan. The tales of the "counter-history" from these points in time and the people who told them are powerful reminders of the need for authentic storytelling before the stories of the past are forgotten.

MY RATING: 4.5

Red Flags (George Magnus)

George Magnus’s Red Flags documents the rise of China during its present-day Communist era, focusing specifically on the current regime of Chinese Premier Xi Jingping and his growing assertiveness within the Chinese bureaucracy and on the foreign stage. China’s economic development has been remarkable in the scope of history; Magnus devotes a fair amount of coverage in explaining how that has taken place and discusses items that he sees as potential “red flags” in the coming decades. These flags could trip up China and perhaps increase instability in an already unstable world.

Red Flags tackles age, currency, debt, and trade, as well as internal and external politics in explaining how the country’s economic and potentially political growth could falter. The country’s aging population may limit economic growth as the country grows old in the coming decades, which may fuel issues with debt and with its currency. Political issues and America’s current nationalism on economics likely will impact how China manages its relationships globally and may also hinder economic growth. Magnus articulates a call to action on how the global community engages with China, where cooperation can be utilized and where China can be called to task when it steps out of line.

There is extensive thought given to the country on its rise on the world’s economic and now political stages. Magnus makes an effective argument in shaping concerns that could hamper China in the coming years, which in turn could have impacts on the rest of the world given how connected the global community is. This book’s target reader is someone interested in business, geopolitics, and international trade - and Magnus’s words will be worth considering even if his purported red flags fail to flap in any headwinds.

MY RATING - 4

The Ghost Bride (Yangsze Choo)

Yangsze Choo's stunning debut The Ghost Bride is one of those rare novels that sticks with you long after you read it.  Filled with hypnotizing, melodic prose in its dream world, it even seemed to make MY dreams more vivid.

Li Lan is the daughter of a bankrupt Chinese man and unfortunately, does not have many prospects for marriage.  The extremely wealthy Lim family makes a bizarre proposal that she become the bride in death of their deceased son.  While very rare, this ghost marriage would give Li Lan power and wealth for as long as she lived, but at what price?  On top of all that, she has fallen in love with the Lim's new heir, Tian Bai.  When the deceased son begins to haunt her dreams, Li Lan will do anything to stop him and get back to Tian Bai, even if it means that her own soul is placed in peril. 

It is in this spirit world that the true magic of The Ghost Bride happens.  Choo has written such a fantastical book where humans intermingle with spirits both in this world and the next.  Here's hoping that Choo eventually writes a sequel to this beautiful piece.

MY RATING - 4