Books like 'Modern China: A Very Short Introduction'
Readers who enjoyed Modern China: A Very Short Introduction by Rana Mitter also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical asia east-asia china politics university communism
-
Freedom Swimmer by Wai Chim
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA powerful story of friendship, bravery, and a desperate bid for freedom, inspired by true events.Ming survived the famine that killed his parents during China's "Great Leap Forward", and lives a hard but adequate life, working in the fields... -
![The Patriot by Pearl S. Buck]()
The Patriot by Pearl S. Buck
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThis swift and timely story covers the events of twelve years. It begins with the revolution sweeping down the Yangtze, when young students, fired with new patriotism, went singing to jail or to the beheading ground... -
![Jin Ping Mei/ The Golden Lotus by Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng]()
Jin Ping Mei/ The Golden Lotus by Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe fullest translation of Jin Ping Mei available in English. This edition was derived from the Egerton translation, minus the Latin, with a few euphemisms thrown in, but is considerably more complete than the Olympia Press version most Westerners are familiar with... -
![Dream of the Walled City by Lisa Huang Fleischman]()
Dream of the Walled City by Lisa Huang Fleischman
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsMarking the debut of a stunning new literary talent, Lisa Huang Fleischman's extraordinary saga -- inspired by her grandmother's life as an early feminist, political activist, and friend of Mao Zedong -- is a masterpiece about one clever and resourceful woman, growing up amidst the turmoil of twentieth-century China... -
-
![Five Modern No Plays by Yukio Mishima, Kan'ami Kiyotsugu]()
Five Modern No Plays by Yukio Mishima, Kan'ami Kiyotsugu
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsJapanese No drama is one of the great art forms that has fascinated people throughout the world... -
![Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke]()
Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsOfficially censored upon its Chinese publication, and the subject of a bitter lawsuit between author and publisher, Dream of Ding Village is Chinese novelist Yan Lianke's most important novel to date. Set in a poor village in Henan province, it is a deeply moving and beautifully written account of a blood-selling ring in contemporary China... -
![The Three-Inch Golden Lotus: A Novel on Foot Binding by Feng Jicai, 冯骥才]()
The Three-Inch Golden Lotus: A Novel on Foot Binding by Feng Jicai, 冯骥才
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThis beguiling story is woven around the life of Fragrant Lotus, who has her feet bound in the supreme Golden Lotus style when she is six years old. Events in Fragrants Lotus’ life twist and unfold in a series of witty and often wicked ironies, obliterating easy distinctions between kindness and cruelty, history and fable, forgery and authentic work... -
![Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall]()
Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe struggle for Vietnam occupies a central place in the history of the twentieth century. Fought over a period of three decades, the conflict drew in all the world’s powers and saw two of them—first France, then the United States—attempt to subdue the revolutionary Vietnamese forces... -
![Illuminations: Essays and Reflections by Walter Benjamin]()
Illuminations: Essays and Reflections by Walter Benjamin
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsStudies on contemporary art and culture by one of the most original, critical and analytical minds of this century. Illuminations includes Benjamin's views on Kafka, with whom he felt the closest personal affinity, his studies on Baudelaire and Proust (both of whom he translated), his essays on Leskov and on Brecht's Epic Theater... -
![A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891 - 1924 by Orlando Figes]()
A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891 - 1924 by Orlando Figes
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIt is history on an epic yet human scale. Vast in scope, exhaustive in original research, written with passion, narrative skill, and human sympathy, A People's Tragedy is a profound account of the Russian Revolution for a new generation. Many consider the Russian Revolution to be the most significant event of the twentieth century... -
![Inside the Gas Chambers: Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz by Shlomo Venezia]()
Inside the Gas Chambers: Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz by Shlomo Venezia
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis is a unique, eye-witness account of everyday life right at the heart of the Nazi extermination machine. Slomo Venezia was born into a poor Jewish-Italian community living in Thessaloniki, Greece. At first, the occupying Italians protected his family; but when the Germans invaded, the Venezias were deported to Auschwitz... -
![The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991 by Eric J. Hobsbawm]()
The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991 by Eric J. Hobsbawm
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsDividing the century into the Age of Catastrophe, 1914-1950, the Golden Age, 1950-1973, and the Landslide, 1973-1991, Hobsbawm marshals a vast array of data into a volume of unparalleled inclusiveness, vibrancy, and insight, a work that ranks with his classics The Age of Empire and The Age of Revolution. Includes 32 pages of photos... -
![Memoirs of a Revolutionary by Victor Serge, Charles Lamb]()
Memoirs of a Revolutionary by Victor Serge, Charles Lamb
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis facsimile edition brings Charles Lamb's critically acclaimed and revered "Elia" essays back into print...Categorized as:
communism politics 20th-century fiction historical non-fiction philosophy revolution -
![Lone Wolf and Cub, Omnibus 1 by Kazuo Koike]()
Lone Wolf and Cub, Omnibus 1 by Kazuo Koike
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsShogunate executioner Ogami Itto is framed as a traitor by the agents from a rival clan. With his wife murdered and with an infant son to protect, Ogami chooses the path of the rōnin, the masterless samurai. The Lone Wolf and Cub wander feudal Japan, Ogami's sword for hire, but all roads will lead them to a single destination—vengeance... -
-
![Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance by Noam Chomsky, Marv Waterstone]()
Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance by Noam Chomsky, Marv Waterstone
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAn essential primer on capitalism, politics and how the world works, based on the hugely popular undergraduate lecture series 'What is Politics?'Is there an alternative to capitalism? In this landmark text Chomsky and Waterstone chart a critical map for a more just and sustainable society.'Covid-19 has revealed glaring failures and monstrous brutalities in the current capitalist system...Categorized as:
politics communism university non-fiction philosophy audiobook social-commentary revolution -
![Stars Between the Sun and Moon: One Woman's Life in North Korea and Escape to Freedom by Lucia Jang, Susan McClelland]()
Stars Between the Sun and Moon: One Woman's Life in North Korea and Escape to Freedom by Lucia Jang, Susan McClelland
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAn extraordinary memoir by a North Korean woman who defied the government to keep her family alive.Born in the 1970s, Lucia Jang grew up in a common, rural North Korean household—her parents worked hard, she bowed to a photo of Kim Il-Sung every night, and the family scraped by on rationed rice and a small garden. However, there is nothing common about Jang... -
![Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World by Srdja Popovic, Matthew Miller]()
Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World by Srdja Popovic, Matthew Miller
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAn urgent and accessible handbook for peaceful protesters, activists, and community organizers—anyone trying to defend their rights, hold their government accountable, or change the worldBlueprint for Revolution will teach you how to• make oppression backfire by playing your opponents’ strongest card against them• identify the “almighty pillars of power” in order to shift the balance of control•...Categorized as:
politics communism non-fiction social-commentary philosophy revolution war psychological -
![Mud Sweeter than Honey: Voices of Communist Albania by Małgorzata Rejmer]()
Mud Sweeter than Honey: Voices of Communist Albania by Małgorzata Rejmer
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA polyphonic account of life in Albania under Enver Hoxha's regime, arguably the most brutal totalitarian state of allAfter breaking ties with Yugoslavia, the USSR and then China, Enver Hoxha believed that Albania could become a self-sufficient bastion of communism... -
![All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity by Marshall Berman]()
All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity by Marshall Berman
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"A bubbling caldron of ideas . . . Enlightening and valuable." —Mervyn Jones, New Statesman.The political and social revolutions of the nineteenth century, the pivotal writings of Goethe, Marx, Dostoevsky, and others, and the creation of new environments to replace the old—all have thrust us into a modern world of contradictions and ambiguities...Categorized as:
communism politics university 20th-century contemporary fiction historical non-fiction -
![Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague, 1941-1968 by Heda Margolius Kovály]()
Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague, 1941-1968 by Heda Margolius Kovály
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsHeda Margolius Kovály (1919–2010) endured both the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz and the brutality of Czechoslovakia's postwar Stalinist government. Her husband, after surviving Dachau and Auschwitz and becoming Czechoslovakia's deputy minister of foreign trade, was convicted of conspiracy in the infamous 1952 Slansky trial and then executed... -
![Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution by Walter Rodney]()
Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution by Walter Rodney
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA previously unpublished collection of Rodney's essays on Marxism, spanning his engagement with of Black Power, Ujamaa Villages, and the everyday people who put an end to a colonial eraEarly in life, Walter Rodney became a major revolutionary figure in a dizzying range of locales that traversed the breadth of the Black in North America and Europe, in the Caribbean and on the African continent... -
![النبى الأعزل - تروتسكى 1921 - 1929 by Isaac Deutscher, إسحق دويتشر]()
النبى الأعزل - تروتسكى 1921 - 1929 by Isaac Deutscher, إسحق دويتشر
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe Prophet Unarmed, first published in 1959, is the second volume of Isaac Deutscher's extraordinary Trotsky trilogy, which the Guardian has said 'will rank among the great political biographies of our time... -
![Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra F. Vogel]()
Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra F. Vogel
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsPerhaps no one in the twentieth century had a greater long-term impact on world history than Deng Xiaoping. And no scholar of contemporary East Asian history and culture is better qualified than Ezra Vogel to disentangle the many contradictions embodied in the life and legacy of China’s boldest strategist... -
![The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich A. Hayek]()
The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich A. Hayek
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsA classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics, The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers for half a century... -
-
![Living My Life, Vol. 1 by Emma Goldman]()
Living My Life, Vol. 1 by Emma Goldman
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratings“You damn bitch of an anarchist, I wish I could get at you. I would tear your heart out and feed it to my dog.” This was one of the less obscene messages received by Emma Goldman (1869-1940), while in jail on suspicion of complicity in the assassination of McKinley. The most notorious woman of her day, she was bitterly hated by millions and equally revered by millions...Categorized as:
communism politics classics feminism historical non-fiction philosophy social-commentary -
![Against Empire by Michael Parenti]()
Against Empire by Michael Parenti
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsRichly informed and written in an engaging style, Against Empire exposes the ruthless agenda and hidden costs of the U.S. empire today. Documenting the pretexts and lies used to justify violent intervention and maldevelopment abroad, Parenti shows how the conversion to a global economy is a victory of finance capital over democracy...Categorized as:
politics communism non-fiction philosophy colonization historical 20th-century social-commentary -
![Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire by Victor Sebestyen]()
Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire by Victor Sebestyen
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsJournalist Victor Sebestyen witnessed much of the 1989 fall of the Soviet empire at first hand, and in this book, he reassesses this decisive moment in modern history...Categorized as:
communism politics 20th-century audiobook cold-war historical non-fiction psychological -
![Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala by Stephen C. Schlesinger, Stephen Kinzer]()
Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala by Stephen C. Schlesinger, Stephen Kinzer
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsBitter Fruit is a comprehensive and insightful account of the CIA operation to overthrow the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954. First published in 1982, this book has become a classic, a textbook case of the relationship between the United States and the Third World. The authors make extensive use of U.S... -
![Gorbachev: His Life and Times by William Taubman]()
Gorbachev: His Life and Times by William Taubman
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe definitive biography of the transformational world leader by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Khrushchev.When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, the USSR was one of the world’s two superpowers. By 1989 he had transformed Soviet Communism... -
![A Dying Colonialism by Frantz Fanon]()
A Dying Colonialism by Frantz Fanon
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrantz Fanon's seminal work on anticolonialism and the fifth year of the Algerian Revolution. Psychiatrist, humanist, revolutionary, Frantz Fanon was one of the great political analysts of our time, the author of such seminal works of modern revolutionary theory as The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin, White Masks...Categorized as:
politics communism university non-fiction philosophy psychological colonization social-commentary
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.
