Friends and Enemies – The Past, Present & Future of the CPC

While I’m plugging friend’s book events I better mention that Kerry Brown is speaking Tuesday night (4th) at the Beijing Bookworm on his new book Friends and Enemies – a history and analysis of the Chinese Communist Party. I won’t comment on it in detail here as I read a pre-publication, pre-proofed copy and he might have changed some things for the final published version so that would be a bit unfair. However, the earlier version I read was an excellent and succinct summation of the Party’s history and future based on the ideological strait jackets it has got itself into over the decades since forming back in the 1920s.The draft was an excellent read so I have no doubt the finished product is excellent too*.

Following Kerry’s Struggling Giant: China in the 21st Century, it seems he is becoming the master of the short (by short I mean under 90,000 words) study relating to China. As books get ever longer, less rigorously edited and contain endless footnotes and theoretical waffle (at least those from academics) this style of writing is ever more appreciated by many of us (even those of us who admittedly turn out the 120,000+ word tomes!) for its pointed brevity.

Details of Tuesday night’s book event in Beijing here

* a word of caution – the book comes with a foreword from the risible Will Hutton obviously aimed at attracting the casual browser’s attention. You may want to skip the fatuous China amateurism of Hutton and dive straight into the meat rather than get put off by the great man’s ramblings from afar at the start. Understandable that publishers want forewords written by people who get a lot of airtime like Hutton and attract the attention of the media-mafia inside the M25 but, as those with good China knowledge know from reading his dreadful Writing on the Wall book, Hutton has jumped the China bandwagon for a brief ride ill-prepared and with little in-depth knowledge or first hand experience and has been lauded by few outside of his cohorts in the London Metropolitan liberal media with equally scant knowledge of China.

And Kerry’s speaking in Shanghai too courtesy of the Shanghai FCC at Maya, Shanghai Grand Plaza, 568 Julu Lu at 7pm on Tuesday August 11. Just RSVP to fcc.sfcc@gmail.com by August 10.