Via @bookriot.bsky.social bookriot.com/best-new-boo... 👇

How to Be a Dissident by Gal Beckerman: 9798217089215 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books An invigorating guide to fighting back—part philosophy, part history, and part manual for living with integrity in an age of conformity and authoritarian drift How do we push back in a world where...

Happy publication day to @galbeckerman.bsky.social whose important and engaging new book How to Be a Dissident is out today www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/816867... (a strong short follow up yo his impressive last book on the history of social & intellectual movements The Quiet Before)

[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Understanding China Beyond the Headlines: Jeffrey Wasserstrom’s 𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑊𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝐾𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝐴𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑎” by Jennifer Eagleton 茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS [FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Understanding China Beyond the Headlines: Jeffrey Wasserstrom’s Everything You Wanted to Know About China” b…

First review of my new very short primer chajournal.com/2026/04/20/e...

👇 (end of the review) www.the-tls.com/history/revo...

Looking back to leap forward Of the many books published about revolutions, some begin in ancient times and move forward, while others are the work of multiple contributors who

A first for me to review a book by a onetime prof, but as I noted in the spirit of disclosure, the one class I took from Donald Sassoon was more than 40 years ago and we've had no contact since the early 1980s, so seemed to all an appropriate distance for objectivity! www.the-tls.com/history/revo...

Taiwan Studies Initiative Milk Tea Month: The Milk Tea Alliance Dr. Jeffrey Wasserstrom will give a talk based on his book The Milk Tea Alliance: Inside Asia’s Struggle Against Autocracy and Beijing.

Next Friday (April 24), I'll be back at IU, where I taught for most of the first part of my career, speaking on The Milk Tea Alliance (first time I'll give a live talk where I can hold up a copy of the Taiwan edition) at noon, details of here events.iu.edu/easc/event/2... cc @columbiagr.bsky.social

RSVP for CAF Spring Conference 2026 It's that time of the year again! The China Affairs Forum at GW is very excited to welcome everyone back for our annual Spring Conference where we'll hear from scholars and authors on their work in th...

Looking forward to doing 2 DC April 30 w/ insightful lit scholar Nan Z. Da. We'll be part of a GW event, our part 1:30-2:15, details here docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...) and have a dialogue as part of the wonderful JF Books salon series at 6pm details here www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticket...

A great pleasure to host you.

If You Want a Better World, Act Like You Live in It We’ve had Henry David Thoreau the environmentalist, the libertarian, the life coach. To understand his influence, think of him first as a dissident.

If you want a better world, act like you live in it...

Here's an excerpt from my new book, How to Be a Dissident, out next week, which features Thoreau, but also Joseph Brodsky and Ernst Bloch...masters all of presumptuousness.

Done (and here's hoping doing so means among other things that @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social will learn about it if he doesn't know about it already...seems he might like to know about it)

The Wetland Project has been my favorite alternate-reality radio experience since it began. Since it only happens once a year, you can’t become accustomed to it. Close your eyes and be washed over by the sonic reality of an isolated bog on Saturna Island!

There’s no ebook yet, hoping there will be once there is a North American edition. Will look into the Good Reads issue

Thanks JF Books for listing the Taiwan edition of my @columbiagr.bsky.social Milk Tea Alliance book as arecommended read jfbooks.org?srsltid=AfmB... --happy to be speaking at your store again 4.30 (w/the talented Nan Z. Da this time), wish I was in town to catch @iandenisjohnson.bsky.social on 4.22

Everything you wanted to know about China* - Bui Jones In this accessible and politically astute primer, acclaimed historian Jeffrey Wasserstrom tackles the questions many are afraid to ask about China.

I'll be speaking tomorrow "at" the University of Minnesota (via ZOOM so people can tune in from anywhere), drawing on my super short primer in Q&A form on China in the Xi era just out in Europe and Asia (buijones.com/books/everyt... ), details on the event: chinacenter.umn.edu/events/five-...

Latest literary venture by Minh Bui Jones (founding editor before this of @thediplomat.com & @mekongreview.com as well as publisher of Bui Jones Books), a Granta-style magazine focused on Southeast Asia, should be special like everything he does buijones.com/books/yellow/

Will the Real Jia Zhangke Please Stand Up? | Los Angeles Review of Books Jia Zhangke’s foray into AI filmmaking says a lot about the state of the industry in both China and the United States.

"Considered within the arc of Jia’s multifaceted career, these contradictions begin to come into focus, revealing their own uncanny logic."

Michael Berry on Jia Zhangke’s AI experiment: lareviewofbooks.org/article/jia-zhangke-dire...

Announcing the 2026 Guggenheim Fellows — Guggenheim Fellowships: Supporting Artists, Scholars, & Scientists Since 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has given Fellowships to exceptional artists, writers, scholars, and scientists, empowering them to pursue meaningful work under the freest possible conditions.

Great to see Kate Merkel-Hess, @stephenplatt.bsky.social & Xuefei Ren, all scholars who do excellent work on China (at Penn State & UMASS Amherst in history & Michigan State in sociology, respectively) are now Guggenheim Fellows www.gf.org/stories/anno... cc @ncuscr.bsky.social (2 are PIP fellows)

Authoritarianism 101 - AHA Authoritarianism 101 A Global History About Authoritarianism 101: A Global History is a set of 30 primary source-driven teaching modules designed to offer teachers and students a broad perspective on ...

I wrote a China in 1989 unit for an ambitious, classroom-oriented @historians.org project on authoritarianism www.historians.org/news-publica... --the case studies are open access & intended to have relevance to varied times & places, other contributors include Louise Young & Barbara Weinstein

Authoritarianism 101 - AHA Authoritarianism 101 A Global History About Authoritarianism 101: A Global History is a set of 30 primary source-driven teaching modules designed to offer teachers and students a broad perspective on ...

The AHR has launched a new project, Authoritarianism 101: A Global History, as part of the #AHRSyllabus series.

Explore 30 modules from different contributors and key questions on authoritarianism—each paired with primary sources and teaching resources. The first twelve modules are now live.

Really think every journalist, no matter what your beat, should grab a copy of this. There's a China angle to every story! EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT CHINA* by @jwassers.bsky.social. Available in Asia and Europe!

we have a wonderful East Asian Studies librarian, Zhang Ying, so I'd suggest you write to her: yingz@uci.edu

Really interesting @longbui-uci.bsky.social interview w/Andrew Lam in @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social lareviewofbooks.org/article/andr... (1st met Lam years ago when he came to U to give a great convocation talk to graduating humanities majors/nice that this Q&A is with a colleague from across campus)

A Chinese invasion or blockade of Taiwan is a constant, if not imminent, risk. Three new books consider Beijing’s options for force, Taiwan’s fractured politics, and how America is stuck in the middle of a zero-sum game.

Read Andrew J. Nathan's review-essay: chinabooksreview.com/2026/04/09/t...

Will the Real Jia Zhangke Please Stand Up? | Los Angeles Review of Books Jia Zhangke’s foray into AI filmmaking says a lot about the state of the industry in both China and the United States.

Fascinating new piece in @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social (edited by its film section editors) by @bairuiwen.bsky.social on Jia Zhangke & AI lareviewofbooks.org/article/jia-... cc @afrawang.bsky.social @yunnia.bsky.social @chinabooksreview.com

Will the Real Jia Zhangke Please Stand Up? | Los Angeles Review of Books Jia Zhangke’s foray into AI filmmaking says a lot about the state of the industry in both China and the United States.

Fascinating new piece in @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social (edited by its film section editors) by @bairuiwen.bsky.social on Jia Zhangke & AI lareviewofbooks.org/article/jia-... cc @afrawang.bsky.social @yunnia.bsky.social @chinabooksreview.com

It's always great to get learn via Good Reads that someone new has come across, read & liked one's no longer new book/I was gratified to see the March review below of my 2020 @columbiagr.bsky.social book Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink & February review below of my 2025 CGR book The Milk Tea Alliance

Enduring Hostility: The Making of America's Iran Policy

Very glad @dassakaye.bsky.social will speak at UCI on April 14 (3:30pm in HG1030), in an event on her important 2025 @stanfordpress.bsky.social book on U.S.-Iran issues that's valuable for its historical insights & for placing 2026 events into perspective www.humanities.uci.edu/events/endur...

Shortlist: 2025 Nonfiction Award | China Books Review Announcing the jury’s shortlist of five books for the Baifang Schell Book Prize: Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Book on China or the Sinophone World.

Shortlist just out for Baifang Schell prize for non-fiction--quite a special year for accessible China-related books as this suggests chinabooksreview.com/2026/04/02/s... (shortlist for a separate prize with a lit focus came out earlier this week chinabooksreview.com/2026/03/31/s... )

John Hay’s China Policy Symposium An interdisciplinary one day symposium examining John Hay’s Open Door Policy through new research on diplomacy, empire, narrative, and global power.

Looking forward to being part of this event at Brown on May 2 events.brown.edu/library/even...

Latest @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social interview with me, on my Little Yellow Book, which came out last week in the UK and Asia newbooksnetwork.com/everything-y...