Contexts - The Rough Guide to Beijing - page 286

BOOKS
Youwon'tfindmuchvarietyinEnglish-languagereadingmaterialswhenbuyingbooks
in Beijing; your best bet are the many cheap editions of the Chinese classics, published
in English translation by two Beijing-based firms, Foreign Languages Press (FLP) and
Panda Books (some of whose titles are published outside China, too). In the reviews
given here, books that are especially recommended are marked ; o/p signifies that a
book is out of print.
HISTORY
Peter Fleming The Siege at Peking. A lively account of the events that led up to June 20,
1900, when the foreign legations in Beijing were attacked by the Boxers and Chinese imper-
ial troops.
PaulFrench Midnight in Peking. A real-life murder mystery, revolving around the search for
the killer of Pamela Warner, an English girl whose body was found in Beijing, minus heart
and blood, in 1937.
Jan Wong Red China Blues . Jan Wong, a Canadian of Chinese descent, went to China as an
idealistic Maoist in 1972 at the height of the Cultural Revolution, and was one of only two
Westerners permitted to enrol at Beijing University. She describes the six years she spent in
China and her growing disillusionment, which led eventually to her repatriation. A touching,
sometimes bizarre, inside account of the bad old days.
CULTURE AND SOCIETY
Jasper Becker The Chinese; City of Heavenly Tranquility: Beijing in the History of
China. The Chinese is a classic, weighty, erudite but very comprehensible introduction to
Chinese society and culture; lighter and breezier, City of Heavenly Tranquility is a great col-
lection of stories about Beijing's history, including a hard-hitting condemnation of how most
physical remains of that history have recently been destroyed.
Ian Buruma Bad Elements: Chinese Rebels from Los Angeles to Beijing . Interviews with
Chinese dissidents, both at home and in exile, make for a compelling, if inevitably rather
jaundiced, view of the country.
MartinJacques When China Rules the World . Comprehensive overview, both troubling and
enlightening, of the ascendancy of the Chinese state and the impact that it is having on the
rest of the world.
JamesKynge China Shakes the World . Another critical but acute overview of Chinese soci-
ety and government and the challenges ahead.
Michael Meyer The Last Days of Old Beijing . Combines a history of Beijing's hutongs
with a memoir of what it was like to live in them, immersed in the local community.