Our book club has had two iterations. From 2010 to 2022, we discussed 170 books as an independent institution, but since September 2022, the book club has been officially part of the China Crossroads member community.
Next Discussion(s):
Past Discussions:
- 06/16/24: The Identity Trap, by Yascha Mounk
- 02/04/24: The Rise and Fall of the East, by Yasheng Huang
- 01/07/24: Diplomacy, by Henry Kissinger
- 12/10/23: Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise , by Scott Rozelle
- 10/29/23: Dragon Tactics: How Chinese Entrepreneurs Thrive in Uncertainty, by Aldo Spaanjaars
- 09/17/23: The Dean of Shandong: Confessions of a Minor Bureaucrat at a Chinese University, by Daniel Bell
- 08/20/23: Middle Class Shanghai: Reshaping US-China Engagement, by Cheng Li
- 05/14/23: Why Your CEO Failed in China, by Jack Leblanc
- 04/09/23: Has China Won, by Kishore Mahbubani
- 03/05/23: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari
- 02/05/23: The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, by Priya Parker
- 01/08/23: Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling and Why It Matters, by Richard Reeves
- 11/27/22: Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, Vivek Ramaswamy
- 10/23/22: Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche, by Ethan Watters
- 09/25/22: The Culture Map, by Erin Meyer
- 02/19/22: China’s Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption, by Yuen Yuen Ang
- 01/15/22: Capitalism and the Death Drive, by Byung-Chul Han
- 12/18/21: Man’s Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl
- 11/27/21: More Than One Child: Memoirs of an Illegal Daughter, by Shen Yang
- 11/06/21: Rethinking Chinese Politics, by Joseph Fewsmith
- 10/16/21: The Zhuangzi, by Zhuangzi
- 10/10/21: The Ethics of Authenticity, by Charles Taylor
- 08/21/21: Diary of a Madman and Other Stories, by Lu Xun
- 07/03/21: The Roots of Romanticism, by Isaiah Berlin
- 06/18/21: The Sociology of Religion, by Max Weber
- 05/15/21: China’s New Red Guards: The Return of Radicalism and the Rebirth of Mao Zedong, by Jude Blanchette
- 04/24/21: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, by Neil Postman
- 04/10/21: Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority, by Lucian Pye
- 03/20/21: The Great Flowing River: A Memoir of China from Manchuria to Taiwan, by Chi Pang-yuan
- 02/27/21: The Crippled Tree: A Story of War and Revolution in China, by Han Suyin
- 02/06/21: Tectonic Politics: Global Political Risk in an Age of Transformation, by Nigel Gould-Davies
- 01/16/21: The Far Right Today, by Cas Mudde
- 01/03/21: Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again, by Robert Putnam
- 12/12/20: Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson
- 11/28/20: Plagues and Peoples , by William McNeill
- 11/14/20: Dictionary of the Khazars, by Milorad Pavic
- 10/31/20: Under Red Skies: Three Generations of Life, Loss, and Hope in China, by Karoline Kan
- 10/17/20: The Captive Mind, by Czeslaw Milosz
- 09/05/20: Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, by Christopher Clark
- 08/08/20: The World of Yesterday, by Stefan Zweig
- 07/11/20: AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, by Kai-Fu Lee
- 06/14/20: Against Political Equality: The Confucian Case, by Bai Tongdong
- 05/16/20: The Light That Failed: Why the West is Losing Democracy, by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes
- 01/11/20: The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities, by John Mearsheimer
- 12/15/19: Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination, by Robert Bickers
- 11/23/19: Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace
- 06/02/19: The China Lover: A Novel, by Ian Buruma
- 05/11/19: Youth Culture in China: From Red Guards to Netizens, by Paul Clark
- 04/14/19: Nations and Nationalism since 1780, by Eric Hobsbawm
- 03/24/19: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, by Yuval Noah Harari
- 03/03/19: Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World, by Rana Mitter
- 02/10/19: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, by Richard Hofstadter
- 01/06/19: When True Love Came to China, by Lynn Pan
- 12/16/18: The Theory of Moral Sentiments, by Adam Smith
- 11/04/18: From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds, by Daniel Dennett
- 10/14/18: Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, by Francis Fukuyama
- 09/22/18: Metaphors We Live By, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
- 09/02/18: The Human Condition, by Hannah Arendt
- 07/15/18: Confucius: The Secular as Sacred, by Herbert Fingarette
- 06/24/18: Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud, by Peter Watson
- 06/03/18: China and Russia: The New Rapprochement, by Alexander Lukin
- 05/13/18: The End of an Era: How China’s Authoritarian Revival is Undermining Its Rise, by Carl Minzner
- 04/14/18: The China Questions: Critical Insights into a Rising Power, by Jennifer Rudolph and Michael Szonyi
- 03/18/18: Last War of the World Island: The Geopolitics of Contemporary Russia, by Alexander Dugin
- 02/25/18: The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power from Freemasons to Facebook, by Niall Ferguson
- 02/03/18: Easternization: Asia’s Rise and America’s Decline From Obama to Trump, by Gideon Rachman
- 01/13/18: The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy, by Daniel Bell
- 12/02/17: Asia’s Reckoning: China, Japan, and the Fate of U.S. Power in the Pacific Century, by Richard McGregor
- 11/11/17: The Better Angels of Our Nature, by Steven Pinker
- 10/21/17: The Retreat of Western Liberalism, by Edward Luce
- 09/09/17: China’s Asian Dream: Empire Building along the New Silk Road, by Tom Miller
- 08/19/17: The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power, by Thomas Christensen
- 07/22/17: The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age, by James Kirchick
- 07/01/17: Should We Fear Russia? by Dmitri Trenin
- 06/03/17: Everything Under the Heavens: China’s Push for Global Power, by Howard French
- 05/07/17: Stacked Deck: A Story of Selfishness in America, by Ezra Mitchell
- 04/09/17: Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics, by Huang Yasheng
- 03/12/17: Anatomy of Revolution, by Crane Brinton
- 02/18/17: Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History, by Philip Bobbit
- 01/21/17: Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War I to the Present, by David Runciman
- 01/08/17: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, by Nicholas Taleb
- 12/04/16: A Study of History, by Arnold Toynbee
- 11/13/16: Trying Not to Try: The Art and Science of Spontaneity, by Edward Slingerland
- 10/23/16: The Next Great War? The Roots of World War I and Risk of U.S.-China Conflict, by Richard Rosecrance
- 09/25/16: CEO China: The Rise of Xi Jinping, by Kerry Brown
- 09/04/16: An Intimate History of Humanity, by Theodore Zeldin
- 07/24/16: China’s Future, by David Shambaugh
- 07/10/16: Acts of Union and Disunion, by Linda Colley
- 06/26/16: The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order, by Francis Fukuyama
- 06/05/16: Cultural Revolution: A People’s History, 1962-1976, by Frank Dikötter
- 05/15/16: Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville
- 04/24/16: Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, by Joseph Schumpeter
- 04/03/16: Why the West Rules for Now, by Ian Morris
- 03/13/16: Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, by Masha Gessen
- 02/21/16: Naked Earth, by Eileen Chang
- 01/31/16: Liberalism: The Life of an Idea, by Edmund Fawcett
- 01/10/16: Unfinished Republic: Leading by Word and Deed in Modern China, by David Strand
- 12/20/15: Midnight’s Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India’s Partition, by Nisid Hajari
- 12/06/15: Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
- 11/08/15: On Revolution, by Hannah Arendt
- 10/18/15: War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe, by Victoria Hui
- 09/20/15: Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi
- 08/23/15: Culture of Freedom: Ancient Greece and the Origins of Europe, by Christian Meier
- 08/02/15: GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History, by Diane Coyle
- 07/12/15: Rising China and Asian Democratization, by Daniel Lynch
- 06/14/15: Debating China: The U.S.-China Relationship in Ten Conversations, by Nina Hachigian
- 05/31/15: Confucian Political Ethics, by Daniel Bell
- 05/10/15: 1984, by George Orwell
- 04/12/15: Elementary Particles, by Michel Houellebecq
- 03/22/15: In Line Behind a Billion People: How Scarcity Will Define China’s Ascent, by Damien Ma
- 03/01/15: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari
- 02/08/15: Social Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship, by Barrington Moore
- 01/18/15: World Order, by Henry Kissinger
- 12/07/14: Shanghai’s Dancing World, by Andrew Field
- 11/16/14: Fourth Revolution: How the Infosphere is Reshaping Human Reality, by Luciano Floridi
- 10/26/14: Political Order and Political Decay, by Francis Fukuyama
- 09/28/14: Nationalism and the Moral Psychology of Community, by Bernard Yack
- 08/31/14: In Spite of the Gods: The Rise of Modern India, by Edward Luce
- 08/17/14: Buddenbrooks, by Thomas Mann
- 07/20/14: Unnatural Selection: Consequences of a World Full of Men, by Mara Hvistendahl
- 06/29/14: The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Modern World Economy, by Kenneth Pomeranz
- 06/08/14: Capital in the 21st Century, by Thomas Picketty
- 05/11/14: By All Means Necessary: How China’s Resource Quest is Changing the World, by Elizabeth Economy
- 04/20/14: Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power, by Robert Kaplan
- 03/30/14: Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, by Robert Gates
- 03/09/14: Political Order in Changing Societies, by Samuel Huntington
- 02/16/14: Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768, by Philip Kuhn
- 01/19/14: Anxious Wealth: Money and Morality among China’s New Rich, by John Osburg
- 01/05/14: From the Soil: Foundations of Chinese Society, by Fei Xiaotong
- 12/08/13: Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power, by Yan Xuetong
- 11/24/13: Why Nations Fail: Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
- 11/03/13: American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword, by Seymour Martin Lipset
- 10/13/13: Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times, by Jerry Bentley
- 09/15/13: Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the 21st Century, by Orville Schell and John Delury
- 08/25/13: How Asia Works, by Joe Studwell
- 07/28/13: The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, by John Mearsheimer
- 07/14/13: The Power of Tiananmen, by Zhao Dingxin
- 06/23/13: Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, by Mo Yan
- 06/02/13: Discourse on Inequality, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- 05/12/13: The Old Regime and the French Revolution, by Alexis de Tocqueville
- 04/14/13: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain
- 03/24/13: From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia, by Pankaj Mishra
- 02/24/13: When God Talks Back: The American Evangelical Relationship with God, by T.M. Luhrmann
- 02/03/13: Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, by Benedict Anderson
- 01/13/13: The East, the West, and Sex: A History of Erotic Encounters, by Richard Bernstein
- 12/09/12: The Closing of the American Mind, by Allan Bloom
- 11/11/12: What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, by Michael Sandel
- 10/14/12: States Without Nations: Citizenship for Mortals, by Jacqueline Stevens
- 09/23/12: Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, by Charles Murray
- 08/26/12: The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, by David Landes
- 08/05/12: Policing Shanghai, 1927-1937, by Frederic Wakeman
- 07/15/12: Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, by Liah Greenfeld
- 06/17/12: Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, by Suketu Mehta
- 05/27/12: Civilization: The West and the Rest, by Niall Ferguson
- 05/06/12: Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China, by Peter Hessler
- 04/15/12: The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, by Ruth Benedict
- 03/25/12: Nations and Nationalism, by Ernest Gellner
- 03/04/12: Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
- 02/12/12: The Origins of Political Order: From Pre-Human Times to the French Revolution, by Francis Fukuyama
- 01/08/12: The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga
- 12/18/11: The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of China, by Julia Lovell
- 11/27/11: The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds, by David Lampton
- 11/06/11: Wars, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places, by Paul Collier
- 10/16/11: God and Gold, by Walter Russell Mead
- 09/25/11: The Beijing Consensus: Legitimizing Authoritarianism In Our Time, by Stephen Halper
- 09/04/11: Seeing Like A State: How Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, by James Scott
- 08/14/11: Why Europe Was First, by Erik Ringmar
- 07/17/11: Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
- 06/12/11: Status Anxiety, by Allain de Botton
- 05/29/11: Of Paradise and Power: Europe and America in the New World Order, by Robert Kagan
- 05/08/11: Globalization and Cultural Trends in China, by Liu Kang
- 04/10/11: Obama’s Wars, by Bob Woodward
- 03/13/11: My Country and My People, by Lin Yutang
- 02/20/11: Mao Zedong: A Political and Intellectual Portrait, by Maurice Meisner
- 01/16/11: Wild West China: The Taming of Xinjiang, by Christian Tyler
- 12/12/10: The Spirit of Chinese Politics, by Lucian Pye
- 11/21/10: The Cold War: A New History, by John Lewis Gaddis
- 10/31/10: The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers, by Richard McGregor
- 09/26/10: China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion in Africa, by Serge Michel and Michel Beuret
- 09/05/10: The Fat Years, by Koonchung Chan
- 08/15/10: China’s New Confucianism, by Daniel Bell
- 07/18/10: Prisoner of the State, by Zhao Ziyang
- 07/04/10: Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently and Why, by Richard Nisbett
- 06/06/10: Rule of Law and the Myth of Democracy, by Pan Wei
- 05/16/10: Free World: America, Europe, and the Surprising Future of the West, by Timothy Garton Ash