30 Books to Read on Contemporary China

Part of my small personal library

Yesterday, Prof. Jon Sullivan, China specialist and a political scientist at the University of Nottingham released a reading list of 30 books on the introduction of contemporary China in his website. While going through the list, I felt that he chose nearly all the issues that are essentially connected to China, but he missed a very important issue, which China believes as one of their core interest. For China, Tibet is not just merely a so called  Western Treasure House, but also holds a very important strategic position in the political field. I have requested Prof. Sullivan to include Tibet, or else the minority issues in his reading list, which I believe he is receptive of the idea. He responded to my tweet asking for some Tibet related books.

Irrespective of whether Tibet be included in the reading list or not, I think his recommendation of 30 books on the introduction of contemporary China is a great collection which consist diverse issues and hence are worth to read, especially the students and the China observers. 

Another interesting part of his reading list is that it is also followed by the twitter accounts of the authors.

30 Books to Read on Contemporary China:
    
1) Kerry Brown-Contemporary China (Palgrave 2013). @Bkerrychina

2) Tony Saich, Governance and Politics of China (3rd Edition, Palgrave, 2011).

3) William Callahan, China Dreams: 20 Visions of the Future (Oxford, 2013)

4) Orville Schell and John Delury, Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty First Century. (Little Brown, 2013). @orvilleschell & @JohnDelury

5) Richard McGregor, The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers (Penguin, 2011). @mcgregorrichard

6) Joseph Fewsmith, The logic and limits of political reform in China (Cambridge, 2013)

7) Johan Lagerkvist, After the Internet, Before Democracy (Lang, 2010). @Chinaroader

8) Barry Naughton, The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth (MIT, 2007).

9) Elizabeth Economy, River Runs Black (Cornell, 2010). @LizEconomy

10) Jonathan Watts, When a billion Chinese jump (Faber, 2010). @jonathanwatts

11) Kevin O’Brien and Li Lianjiang, Rightful Resistance in Rural China (Cambridge, 2006).

12) Lily L. Tsai, Accountability without Democracy: Solidary groups and public goods provision in rural China (Cambridge, 2007)

13) Susan Shirk, China: Fragile Superpower (Oxford, 2007).

14) William Callahan, China: The Pessoptimist Nation (Cambridge, 2010).

15) Robert Sutter, Chinese Foreign Relations: Power and Policy since the Cold War (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008).

16) Taylor Fravel, Strong Borders, Secure Nation (Princeton, 2011). @fravel

17) Nathan and Scobell, China’s Search for Security (Columbia, 2012).

18) David Sambaugh, China Goes Global (Oxford, 2013).

19) Joshua Kurlantzick, Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power Is Transforming the World. (Yale, 2007). @JoshKurlantzick

20) Deborah Brautigam, The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa (Oxford, 2011). @D_Brautigam

21) Susan Shirk (ed), Changing Media, Changing China (Oxford, 2011).

22) Doug Young, The Party Line: How the media dictates public opinion in modern China (Wiley, 2013).

23) Anne-Marie Brady, Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China. (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008).

24) Guobin Yang, The Power of the Internet in China (Columbia, 2009). @Yangguobin

25) Zheng Yongnian, Technological empowerment: The Internet, State, and Society in China. (Stanford, 2008).

26) Kevin O’Brien (ed), Popular Protest in China (Harvard, 2008).

27) Shah & Wasserstrom (eds), Chinese Characters (Berkeley, 2012). @angshah & @jwassers

28) Teresa Wright, Accepting Authoritarianism: Sate-Society Relations in China’s Reform Era (Stanford, 2010).

29) Bruce Jacobs, Democratizing Taiwan. (Brill, 2012).

30) Lee Ambrozy (ed/tr), Ai Weiwei’s Blog. (MIT, 2011). @LeeAmbrozy

Visit Prof. Jon Sullivan's http://jonlsullivan.com/website and follow his tweet at @jonsullivan.

However, if anyone interested on China studies, there is a compilation of books on China, prepared by Lubna Malik and Lynn White of Woodrow Wilson School, Politics Department, East Asian Studies Program, Princeton University, Winter 2007-2008 Edition.
Click here to view: http://www.princeton.edu/~lynn/chinabib.pdf