The Souls of China

The Souls of China
Author: Ian Johnson
Publisher: Pantheon
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2017
Genre: History
ISBN: 1101870052

From the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist: a revelatory portrait of religion in China today, its history, the spiritual traditions of its Eastern and Western faiths, and the ways in which it is influencing China's future. Following a century of violent antireligious campaigns, China is now awash with new temples, churches, and mosques as well as cults, sects, and politicians trying to harness religion for their own ends. Driving this explosion of faith is uncertainty over what it means to be Chinese, and how to live an ethical life in a country that discarded traditional morality a century ago and is still searching for new guideposts. Ian Johnson lived for extended periods with underground church members, rural Daoists, and Buddhist pilgrims. He has distilled these experiences into a cycle of festivals, births, deaths, detentions, and struggle a great awakening of faith that is shaping the soul of the world s newest superpower. (With black-and-white illustrations throughout).

Out of Mao's Shadow

Out of Mao's Shadow
Author: Philip P. Pan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 371
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 1416537058

An inside analysis of modern cultural and political upheavals in China by a fluent Beijing correspondent describes the power struggles currently taking place between the party elite and supporters of democracy, the outcome of which the author predicts will significantly affect China's rise to a world super-power. 125,000 first printing.

Soulstealers

Soulstealers
Author: Philip A KUHN
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2009-06-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674039777

Midway through the reign of the Ch'ien-lung emperor, Hungli, mass hysteria broke out among the common people. It was feared that sorcerers were roaming the land, clipping off the ends of men's queues (the braids worn by royal decree) and chanting magical incantations over them in order to steal the souls of their owners. In a fascinating chronicle of this epidemic of fear and the official prosecution of soulstealers that ensued, Philip Kuhn opens a window on the world of eighteenth-century China.

Wild Grass

Wild Grass
Author: Ian Johnson
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2007-12-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307430251

In Wild Grass, Pulitzer Prize—winning journalist Ian Johnson tells the stories of three ordinary Chinese citizens moved to extraordinary acts of courage: a peasant legal clerk who filed a class-action suit on behalf of overtaxed farmers, a young architect who defended the rights of dispossessed homeowners, and a bereaved woman who tried to find out why her elderly mother had been beaten to death in police custody. Representing the first cracks in the otherwise seamless façade of Communist Party control, these small acts of resistance demonstrate the unconquerable power of the human conscience and prophesy an increasingly open political future for China.

Christian Souls and Chinese Spirits

Christian Souls and Chinese Spirits
Author: Nicole Constable
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2023-11-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520338677

How do the people of a village that is both Chinese and Christian reconcile the contradictions between their religious and ethnic identities? This ethnographic study explores the construction and changing meanings of ethnic identity in Hong Kong. Established at the turn of the century by Hakka Christians who sought to escape hardships and discrimination in China, Shung Him Tong was constructed as an "ideal" Chinese and Christian village. The Hakka Christians translate "traditional" Chinese beliefs—such as ancestral worship and death rituals—that are incompatible with their Christian ideals into secular form, providing a crucial link with the past and with a Chinese identity. Despite accusations to the contrary, these villagers maintain that while they are Christian, they are still Chinese. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1994.

China Wakes

China Wakes
Author: Nicholas D. Kristof
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 529
Release: 2011-10-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307764230

The definitive book on China's uneasy transformation into an economic and political superpower, and an insightful and thought-provoking analysis of daily life in China from the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists and bestselling authors of Half a Sky. "Nick Kristof's and Sheryl WuDunn's work as correspondents in China was beyond compare, and now they have written a book every bit as astonishing. China Wakes is filled with anecdote, detail, and analysis of the highest order.... This book demands reading, and yet it is a pleasure as well as an education." —David Remnick, Editor of The New Yorker Featuring 16 pages of photos

The Soul of China

The Soul of China
Author: Amaury De Riencourt
Publisher:
Total Pages: 326
Release: 1989
Genre: China
ISBN:

The Souls of China

The Souls of China
Author: Ian Johnson
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 482
Release: 2018-03-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0804173397

One of the Best Books of the Year: The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor China is in the midst of one of the world’s great spiritual awakenings: some 300 million Chinese currently practice a faith, while tens of millions more follow personal gurus, populist masters and New Age sages. This astonishing revival began in 1982 when the Communist Party pledged to allow what it thought would be a small-scale practice of religion under government supervision. But the faithful have expanded far beyond the Party’s expectations: Today, China’s cities and villages are filled with new temples, churches, and mosques as well as cults, sects and politicians trying to harness religion for their own ends. Fueling this resurgence is a popular desire to rediscover a moral compass in a society driven by naked capitalism. For six years, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Ian Johnson lived for extended periods with three religious communities: the underground Early Rain Protestant congregation in Chengdu, the Ni family’s Buddhist pilgrimage association in Beijing, and yinyang Daoist priests in rural Shanxi. Johnson distills these experiences into a cycle of festivals, births, deaths, detentions, and struggle that reveals the hearts and minds of the Chinese people—a great awakening of faith that is shaping the soul of the world’s newest superpower.

The China Questions 2

The China Questions 2
Author: Maria Adele Carrai
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2022-08-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0674287517

Following the success of The China Questions, a new volume of insights from top China specialists explains key issues shaping today’s US-China relationship. For decades Americans have described China as a rising power. That description no longer fits: China has already risen. What does this mean for the US-China relationship? For the global economy and international security? Seeking to clarify central issues, provide historical perspective, and demystify stereotypes, Maria Adele Carrai, Jennifer Rudolph, and Michael Szonyi and an exceptional group of China experts offer essential insights into the many dimensions of the world’s most important bilateral relationship. Ranging across questions of security, economics, military development, climate change, public health, science and technology, education, and the worrying flashpoints of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Xinjiang, these concise essays provide an authoritative look at key sites of friction and potential collaboration, with an eye on where the US-China relationship may go in the future. Readers hear from leading thinkers such as James Millward on Xinjiang, Elizabeth Economy on diplomacy, Shelley Rigger on Taiwan, and Winnie Yip and William Hsiao on public health. The voices included in The China Questions 2 recognize that the US-China relationship has changed, and that the policy of engagement needs to change too. But they argue that zero-sum thinking is not the answer. Much that is good for one society is good for both—we are facing not another Cold War but rather a complex and contextually rooted mixture of conflict, competition, and cooperation that needs to be understood on its own terms.