China's Revolution from Below

Wild Grass

'Illuminating ... Johnson has not only lifted a corner of the curtain which covers China's reality beyond its glittering eastern cities; he has drawn the whole curtain' The Times Literary Supplement 
 
In Wild Grass, Pulitzer Prize-winning Ian Johnson describes a China caught between the desire for change percolating up from below and the ossified political structure above. He recounts the stories of three ordinary people who find themselves finding oppression and government corruption, risking imprisonment and even death. A young architecture student, a bereaved daughter, and a peasant legal clerk are the unlikely heroes of these stories, private citizens cast by unexpected circumstances into surprising roles.

Illuminating ... Johnson has not only lifted a corner of the curtain which covers China's reality beyond its glittering eastern cities; he has drawn the whole curtain.

A captivating and an important study of what is happening on the ground in China today.

In Wild Grass, Pulitzer Prize-winning Ian Johnson describes a China caught between the desire for change percolating up from below and the ossified political structure above. He recounts the stories of three ordinary people who find themselves finding oppression and government corruption, risking imprisonment and even death. A young architecture student, a bereaved daughter, and a peasant legal clerk are the unlikely heroes of these stories, private citizens cast by unexpected circumstances into surprising roles.

The Return of Religion After Mao

The Souls of China

'Masterfully opens up a little explored realm: how the quest for religion and spirituality drives hundreds of millions of Chinese' Pankaj Mishra 
 
'A fascinating odyssey ... a nuanced group portrait of Chinese citizens striving for non-material answers in an era of frenetic materialism' Julia Lovell, Guardian 
 
'The reappearance and flourishing of religion is perhaps the most surprising aspect of the dramatic changes in China in recent decades...this is a beautiful, moving and insightful book' Michael Szonyi 
 
In no society on Earth was there such a ferocious attempt to eradicate all trace of religion as in modern China. But now, following a century of violent antireligious campaigns, China is 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 and is still searching for new guideposts. 
 
The Souls of China is the result of some fifteen years of studying and travelling around China. The message of Ian Johnson's extraordinary book is that China is now experiencing a 'Great Awakening' on a vast scale. Everywhere long-suppressed religions are rebuilding, often in new forms, and reshaping the values and behaviours of entire communities. 
 
Ian Johnson is as happy explaining the wonders of the lunar calendar as talking to the yinyang man who ensures proper burials. He visits meditation masters and the charismatic head of a Chengdu church. The result is a rich and funny work that challenges conventional wisdom about China. Xi Jinping, China's current leader, has put a return to morality and Chinese tradition at the heart of his ideas for his country - but, Johnson asks, at what point will the rapid spread of belief form an unmanageable challenge to the Party's monopoly on power?

A lively and fascinating book by a veteran chronicler of grassroots China... a humane portrait of Chinese society that reveals more about everyday life in China than any political text

Ian Johnson has long been a resourceful and bracing guide to the biggest national transformation of modern history. In The Souls of China he masterfully opens up a little explored realm: how the quest for religion and spirituality drives hundreds of millions of Chinese

Johnson succeeds in having produced a nuanced group portrait of Chinese citizens striving for non-material answers in an era of frenetic materialism.

Extraordinarily rich and intimate... This vividly written, deeply researched book will be the primary work about religious faith in China for years to come.

This entrancing and engaging book challenges the modern assumption that religion is a thing of the past

Ian Johnson breaks new ground with a brilliant approach, mixing theoretical explorations with real life vignettes from a convincing insider-outsider-combined perspective, making them commenting each other, illuminating in the same way as through the traditional Chinese criticism paradigm of 'I commentate the six classics which commentate me.' The Souls of China is a must read for an understanding of China

The great Chinese writer Lu Xun once wrote that when many men pass along the same way, a new road is made. The Souls of China shows us how the Chinese people, some with heroic steps and others with hesitant ones, are making a new road for Chinese religion in the twenty-first century. The reappearance and flourishing of religion is perhaps the most surprising aspect of the dramatic changes in China in recent decades. With great sensitivity Ian Johnson guides us on a tour of the rituals, festivals, and above all some of the remarkable characters who make up this new Chinese religious world. This is a beautiful, moving and insightful book

The Souls of China is a rich, informative, and timely book, which explores a major aspect of Chinese life. Ian Johnson carries erudition lightly and describes the people and events with deep insights and personal involvement. Section by section, the writing shows long-term dedication and meticulous research. At heart this is also a personal book, full of feelings and exuberance. It's a tremendous accomplishment

His tripartite masterpiece Wild Grass and his newest book, The Souls of China, are the most remarkable works to come from a western author in the past two decades.

exiled Chinese author of God is Red: The Secret Story of How Christianity Survived and Flourished in Communist China

Through interviews conducted with a wide variety of practitioners, Johnson paints a vivid picture of the diversity of Chinese religious life....He provides a fascinating account of how traditional activities recovered after enduring severe repression during China's Cultural Revolution (1966-76). An excellent work that is highly recommended for readers interested in Chinese culture or religion

Ian Johnson is a Pulitzer Prize winning correspondent for The New York Times and The New York Review of Books. He has spent about half of the past thirty years in China, first as a student and then as a correspondent. He is also an advising editor for The Journal of Asian Studies and teaches on religion in China. He is the author of two other books that also focus on the intersection of politics and religion: Wild Grass: Three Stories of Change in China, and A Mosque in Munich: Nazis, the CIA, and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West. He splits his time between Beijing and Berlin.

In no society on Earth was there such a ferocious attempt to eradicate all trace of religion as in modern China. But now, following a century of violent antireligious campaigns, China is 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 and is still searching for new guideposts. 
 
The Souls of China is the result of some fifteen years of studying and travelling around China. The message of Ian Johnson's extraordinary book is that China is now experiencing a 'Great Awakening' on a vast scale. Everywhere long-suppressed religions are rebuilding, often in new forms, and reshaping the values and behaviours of entire communities.

Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson is one of the most experienced and thoughtful Western journalists writing about China. Now he has turned his attention to one of the most important battles in contemporary China: the struggle to control history ... Moving and full of human character and detail. It's a compelling read, beautifully written, and the product of deep research carried out in China over many years ... an exemplary tribute.

Sparks is a work of scholarship, investigative journalism of a kind that rarely happens in the age of slashed budgets, with eyewitness accounts of brutality that will chill your blood ... Johnson&rsquo;s stories bring these numbers, and this history, chillingly alive.

A skilful exploration… Johnson’s skill lies in demonstrating the philosophical links between China’s geography and its political and cultural landscape ... It is deeply satisfying to read a book about China that could only have been written after decades of serious engagement with the country.

A striking account ... This immersive survey combines interviews, firsthand reportage, and historical research to paint a moving group portrait of China’s political dissidents.

Mr Johnson’s ability to evade controls and gain the trust of his subjects is evident in his compellingly written work. The result is a rare insight into the extraordinary risks that some Chinese take to illuminate the darkest corners of communism.

An indelible feat of reporting and an urgent read, Sparks is alive with the voices of the countless Chinese who fiercely, improbably, refuse to let their histories be forgotten. It's a privilege to read books like these.

Te-Ping Chen, author of Land of Big Numbers

A revelation: this historian from overseas spent years penetrating the world of underground Chinese historians, becoming in his own right a recorder of pioneers such as Hu Jie, Ai Xiaoming, and Jiang Xue, who use text and video to record China's lost history.

Liao Yiwu, author of The Corpse Walker, God is Red and For a Song and a Hundred Songs

This compelling and highly enjoyable book will greatly enhance the general reader's understanding of the subtle counter-currents of resistance at work in Chinese society below the smooth surface of control and compliance.

Sebastian Veg, author of Minjian: The Rise of China's Grassroots Intellectuals

A powerful narrative of how the human spirit has survived the cruel repression of Maoist totalitarianism and is still doing the same against Xi Jinping's determined efforts to impose a new form of digital totalitarianism ... A must read for anyone interested in the Chinese and China.

Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies

Ian Johnson has conducted some of the most important grassroots research of any foreign journalist in China. With Sparks, he turns his attention to history - not the sanctioned, censored, and selective history promoted by the Communist Party, but the independent histories that are being written and filmed by brave individuals across the country. This book is a powerful reminder of the ways in which China's future depends on who controls the past.

China's Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future

A 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. 
 
In 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. 
 
But 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. 
 
Based on years of research in Xi Jinping's China, Sparks 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.

Ian Johnson

Praise for Sparks

Ian Johnson is one of the most experienced and thoughtful Western journalists writing about China. Now he has turned his attention to one of the most important battles in contemporary China: the struggle to control ...

Sparks is a work of scholarship, investigative journalism of a kind that rarely happens in the age of slashed budgets, with eyewitness accounts of brutality that will chill your blood ... Johnson&rs ...

A skilful exploration… Johnson’s skill lies in demonstrating the philosophical links between China’s geography and its political and cultural landscape ... It is deeply satisfying to read a book about China t ...

Ian Johnson is one of the most experienced and thoughtful Western journalists writing about China. Now he has turned his attention to one of the most important battles in contemporary China: the struggle to control ...

Sparks is a work of scholarship, investigative journalism of a kind that rarely happens in the age of slashed budgets, with eyewitness accounts of brutality that will chill your blood ... Johnson&rs ...

A skilful exploration… Johnson’s skill lies in demonstrating the philosophical links between China’s geography and its political and cultural landscape ... It is deeply satisfying to read a book about China t ...

Ian Johnson is one of the most experienced and thoughtful Western journalists writing about China. Now he has turned his attention to one of the most important battles in contemporary China: the struggle to control ...

Sparks is a work of scholarship, investigative journalism of a kind that rarely happens in the age of slashed budgets, with eyewitness accounts of brutality that will chill your blood ... Johnson&rs ...

A skilful exploration… Johnson’s skill lies in demonstrating the philosophical links between China’s geography and its political and cultural landscape ... It is deeply satisfying to read a book about China t ...

Books by Ian Johnson

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