I found the central figures
profiled in Sparks enormously compelling due to their bravery,
determination, and in some cases also audacity.
These intrepid people—a mix
that includes documentary filmmakers, samizdat publishers, essayists, and
collectors of oral histories—simply refuse to give up on their risky mission of
trying to counter-distorting official Chinese Communist Party narratives about
the past. It is an important book, given how much emphasis Xi Jinping has been
placing on controlling views of history.
It is also a gripping read, filled
with lively anecdotes. I am biased, as Ian Johnson, the author, is a close
friend. But I challenge anyone interested in issues of freedom and human rights
to read this and come away unmoved.
'An indelible feat of reporting and an urgent read ... It's a privilege to read books like these' Te-Ping Chen, author of Land of Big Numbers
'A powerful reminder of the ways in which China's future depends on who controls the past' Peter Hessler
A documentary filmmaker who spent years uncovering a Mao-era death camp; an independent journalist who gave voice to the millions who suffered through Covid; a magazine publisher who dodges 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…
I’m
a sucker for books about historical events that leave you keenly aware of how
easily a big transformation could have turned out differently—or not happened.
In this case, the end of Communist Party rule across the former Soviet Bloc is
the transformation.
In providing a fresh perspective on this oft-covered
subject, the author zeroes in on a small and largely forgotten incident: a
picnic. It took place on the border between Hungary and Austria in 1989. It
might never have happened if an Iron Curtain border guard had not decided to
look the other way at a particular moment, or if Gorbachev and a Hungarian
leader not met years before each took power.
The book is by a political
scientist I’ve never met who demonstrates great skills as an oral historian and
a flair for bringing to life the complex motivations of people who risked a lot
in uncertain times.
The story of how he pieced together what happened (from
interviews, Stasi files, and other sources) and the connections he forged with
his subjects from several different countries becomes as fascinating at times
as the history he reconstructs and recounts, often in surprisingly poetic ways.
In August 1989, a group of Hungarian activists organised a picnic on the border of Hungary and Austria. But this was not an ordinary picnic-it was located on the dangerous militarised frontier known as the Iron Curtain. Tacit permission from the highest state authorities could be revoked at any moment. On wisps of rumour, thousands of East German "vacationers" packed Hungarian campgrounds, awaiting an opportunity, fearing prison, surveilled by lurking Stasi agents.
The Pan-European Picnic set the stage for the greatest border breach in Cold War history: hundreds crossed from the Communist East to the longed-for freedom of the West.…
The authors are a married team of journalists whose
manuscript on generations of Hong Kong activists I picked up with a mixture of
excitement and trepidation.
The excitement came from my fascination with Hong
Kong and the fact that I had read and learned a lot from the smart reporting
each author had done on political events in different parts of Asia—reporting
often framed around poignant profiles of individuals.
The trepidation came from
a concern I wouldn’t find out new things, since I had published my own short
book Hong Kong’s struggle for democracy in 2020 and gone on to devour good
books on related topics that appeared after mine, including three that came out
during the first half of 2022 alone!
As I read, I got so swept up in the
extremely well-told life stories in the book, I forgot my trepidation. I came
away with a renewed appreciation for the deeply tragic fate of Hong Kong and
with both new food for thought and new information.
Hong Kong was an experiment in governance. Handed back to China in 1997 after 156 years of British rule, it was meant to be a carve-out between hostile systems: a bridge between communism and capitalism, authoritarianism and liberal democracy. "One country, two systems" kept its media free, its courts independent and its protests boisterous, designed also to convince Taiwan of a peaceful solution to Beijing's desire for reunification.
Yet this formulation excluded Hong Kong's own people, their future negotiated by political titans in faraway capitals. In 2019, an ill-conceived law spear-headed by a sycophantic leader pushed a third of the…
The rise of Hong Kong is the story of a miraculous post-War boom, when Chinese refugees flocked to a small British colony, and, in less than fifty years, transformed it into one of the great financial centers of the world. The unraveling of Hong Kong, on the other hand, shatters the grand illusion of China ever having the intention of allowing democratic norms to take root inside its borders. Hong Kong’s people were subjects of the British Empire for more than a hundred years, and now seem destined to remain the subordinates of today’s greatest rising power.
But although we are witnessing the death of Hong Kong as we know it, this is also the story of the biggest challenge to China’s authoritarianism in 30 years.
