Qiu Xigui, who has died aged 89, first made his mark as a paleographer, a scholar of ancient writing, through researching Chinese “oracle bones”. These are divinations inscribed on animal scapulae – shoulder blades – or turtle plastrons – the bottom part of their shells. The characters they employ are the earliest known forerunners of the modern Chinese writing system. Their appearance in the antiquities market led to the excavation from the late 1920s of the last capital of the Shang dynasty (c1600-1050 BC) at Yinxu, near Anyang, in Henan…
Tag: Books
Red Pockets by Alice Mah review – finding hope amid the climate crisis
Eco-anxiety is not an official medical diagnosis, but everyone knows what it means. The American Psychological Association defines it as “the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one’s future and that of next generations”. Fear of the future, an ache for the past, the present awash with disquiet: into this turmoil Alice Mah’s new book appears like a little red boat, keeping hope afloat against all odds. Mah is a professor of urban and environmental studies…
US writers at growing risk of crackdown on free speech, says PEN America
Writers in the US are at growing risk amid a worldwide crackdown on free speech that has begun to spread to countries previously renowned for unfettered expression and openness, according to a leading writers’ advocacy group. PEN America said it was concerned about an emerging threat from the Trump administration as it published its annual Freedom to Write index report, which showed that the number of writers jailed worldwide had jumped for the sixth year running to 375 in 2024, compared with 339 the year before. Covering a period ending…
New Cold Wars review: China, Russia and Biden’s daunting task
Russia bombards Ukraine. Israel and Hamas are locked in a danse macabre. The threat of outright war between Jerusalem and Tehran grows daily. Beijing and Washington snarl. In a moment like this, David Sanger’s latest book, subtitled China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West, is a must-read. Painstakingly researched, New Cold Wars brims with on-record interviews and observations by thinly veiled sources. Officials closest to the president talk with an eye on posterity. The words of the CIA director, Bill Burns, repeatedly appear on the page.…
Five of the best books to understand modern China
It is the world’s second-biggest economy, the next big threat to global security and a country ruled by an authoritarian regime that is increasingly making its power felt beyond its borders. But the most important part of China is the population of 1.4 billion diverse, tricky and resilient people whose choices are often very distant from the decision-makers in Beijing. These books are an introduction to the forces that have shaped China’s recent past and the people living in its present. What was the Cultural Revolution? The decade of mass…
Liu Cixin: ‘I’m often asked – there’s science fiction in China?’
Chinese author Liu Cixin’s science-fiction novels have sold millions of copies all over the world, and have won him numerous awards, including the global Hugo award for science fiction in 2015. Now, the English translation of the first book in Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, The Three-Body Problem, is back in the Amazon bestsellers charts, after the release of a TV adaptation by the creators of Game of Thrones. But a decade ago, few in the UK had heard of Liu and The Three-Body Problem, which begins as a…
‘A 1939 moment’: Jim Sciutto on Russia, China and the threat of war
At CNN in Washington, Jim Sciutto’s dimly lit office is both man cave and shrine to a foreign correspondent who has reported from more than 50 countries. A typewriter he bought on Portobello Road during a decade in London. Photos he took in Afghanistan and Ukraine. A Vietnamese newspaper account of the time he rode over the South China Sea on a US spy plane. A corked bottle of water from his trip to the North Pole in a US nuclear submarine. A fragment of the Black Hawk helicopter destroyed…
Rare copy of Mao’s Little Red Book expected to fetch more than £30,000
The Little Red Book, a talisman of 20th-century Maoism, may have fallen out of favour in China after the Cultural Revolution, but its popularity with collectors shows no sign of abating. The book, officially entitled Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, was given its popular name due to the bright red cover of mass-produced editions. A rare prototype version is about to resurface in a sale by a west London auction house of hundreds of artefacts from the Cultural Revolution, where it is expected to fetch more than £30,000. The early…
Science fiction awards held in China under fire for excluding authors
A prestigious literary award for science fiction, which was hosted in China for the first time, has come under fire for excluding several authors from the 2023 awards, raising concerns about interference or censorship in the awards process. The New York Times bestseller Babel by RF Kuang, an episode of the Netflix drama The Sandman and the author Xiran Jay Zhao were among the works and authors excluded from the 2023 Hugo awards, which were administered by the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) in Chengdu in October. Babel, which won…
‘Cheaper to save the world than destroy it’: why capitalism is going green
The root of the climate crisis is “not capitalism but the corruption of capitalism”, according to the author of a new book on how people, policy and technology are working to stop the planet from heating. Akshat Rathi, a climate reporter with financial news outlet Bloomberg, argues that smart policies can harness capitalism to cut carbon pollution without killing markets or competition. “It is now cheaper to save the world than destroy it,” he writes, adding that this holds true even when viewed through a narrow capitalist lens. “Capitalism cannot…