{"product_id":"sparks-chinas-underground-historians-and-their-battle-for-the-future","title":"Sparks: China's Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future","description":"\u003ch4 dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eby Ian Johnson\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn inspiring testament to China's dissident historians and activists, from the 1940s to the present\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA documentary filmmaker who uncovered a Mao-era death camp; an independent journalist who gave voice to the millions who suffered through Covid; a magazine publisher who dodged the secret police: these are some of the people who make up Sparks: China's Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future, a vital account of how some of China's most important writers, filmmakers, and artists have overcome crackdowns and censorship to challenge the Chinese Communist Party on its most sacred ground - its monopoly on history.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn traditional China, dynasties rewrote history to justify their rule by proving that their predecessors were unworthy of holding power. The Chinese Communist Party builds on these ideas to whitewash its misdeeds and justify its rule.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut in recent years, critical thinkers from across the land have begun to challenge this state-led disremembering. Using digital technologies to bypass China's legendary surveillance state, their samizdat journals, guerilla media posts, and underground films document a pattern of disasters: from past famines and purges to the ethnic clashes and virus outbreaks of the present.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBased on years of research in Xi Jinping's China, \u003cem\u003eSparks\u003c\/em\u003e challenges stereotypes of a China where the state has quashed all free thought, revealing instead a country engaged in one of humanity's great struggles of memory against forgetting - a battle that will shape the China that emerges in the mid-21st century.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIan Johnson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who has spent most of his adult life in China, working as a correspondent for \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e. He is the author of other books that also focus on the intersection of politics and civil society, including \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003eWild Grass: Three Stories of Change in Modern\u003c\/em\u003e \u003cem\u003eChina\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"飛地·紐西蘭 Nowhere Bookstore","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48901542117611,"sku":null,"price":35.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0825\/0746\/4939\/files\/Sparks.png?v=1781948408","url":"https:\/\/nowherebookstorenz.myshopify.com\/products\/sparks-chinas-underground-historians-and-their-battle-for-the-future","provider":"飛地·紐西蘭 Nowhere Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}