Who’s Afraid of China? Reviews

I’m happy that the publisher tells me that the first two books in my Asian Arguments series for Zed Books are selling well. The series aims to raise subjects and issues of current interest in a readable and well researched form but sticking to around a manageable 60,000 words and stripping out the academese and using real English rather than the elongated and largely unnecessary verbiage that has become a rather sad motif for academic writing these days. Yea, yea, I know “aca-bashing” – but they do deserve it in general I’m afraid.

So I’m happy that Kerry Brown’s Ballot Box China: Grassroots Democracy in the Final Major One-Party State is selling well and getting good reviews. Our second book, Michael Barr’s Who’s Afraid of China: The Challenge of Chinese Soft Power has also sold well, was picked out as notable on the Sinica podcast and just been well reviewed in the Times Higher Educational Supplement.