Sparks
China's Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future
Published on 3. March 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
400 pages
978-0-19-779935-2 (ISBN)
Description
Sparks tells the story of how underground writers, filmmakers, and journalists have been able to bypass China's legendary surveillance state to reveal the truth of Communist Party rule: from famines and purges of years past to ethnic clashes and virus outbreaks of the present. Ian Johnson spent nearly a decade on the ground with these outlaw historians, tracing their history back to the origins of the Communist Party last century and their new, nationwide presence in today's China. Written with verve and humanity, Sparks is a testimony to the power of memory over forgetting.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 233 mm
Width: 154 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
565 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-779935-2 (9780197799352)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Ian Johnson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who has spent twenty years in China writing for The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, as well as serving for five years on the editorial board of The Journal of Asian Studies. He is the author of three other books that focus on the intersection of politics and civil society, including The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, and Wild Grass: Three Stories of Change in Modern China. He is the founder of the China Unofficial Archive and lives in Berlin, Germany.