New Books in Chinese Studies

The Springs-and-Autumns period is a strange period in Chinese history. Coming after the decline of the Zhou, and before the famous Warring States Period, this period of Chinese history features a large number of small states with no powerful hegemon, no strong sense of the mandate of heaven, rules of chivalry that wouldn’t seem out of place in medieval Europe, and roles passed down through lineage–and not awarded on the basis of merit.

Historian Yuri Pines calls this period China’s "aristocratic age” in his book titled, appropriately, China's Aristocratic Age: Politics and Power in the Springs-and-Autumns Period (Princeton UP, 2026).

Yuri Pines is the Michael W. Lipson Chair in Chinese Studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of The Everlasting Empire: The Political Culture of Ancient China and Its Imperial Legacy, The Book of Lord Shang: Apologetics of State Power in Early China, Zhou History Unearthed: The Bamboo Manuscript Xinian and Early Chinese Historiography, and other books.

You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of China’s Aristocratic Age. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.

Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.
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Why have Finland’s biggest multinationals teamed up to create a globally unique analysis hub just to decode the future of China? Meet the analysts who are nurturing the next generation of Finnish expertise to bridge the gap between Nordic business and Chinese policy.

In this episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen at the University of Helsinki talks to Kevin Broady, Marleena Makkonen and Anton Karppanen, three analysts from the China Office of Finnish Industries to understand their mission. The China Office of Finnish Industries acts as a unique nonprofit designed to assist Finnish multinational corporations in navigating the complex geopolitical and economic landscape of the People’s Republic of China. Established in 2022, the organization provides deep strategic analysis on shifting Chinese industrial policies, labor market trends, and the inherent risks of doing business in an increasingly politicized global market. Their work focuses on helping companies understand growing political complexities amid trade tensions while adapting to China's growing influence on international trade. The office is also dedicated to nurturing the next generation of Finnish China analysts through a specialized trainee program for university students. By bridging the gap between academic expertise and corporate decision-making, the team fosters a more sophisticated understanding of how Chinese domestic developments impact Nordic prosperity.

Julie Yu‑Wen Chen is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Master’s Programme in Area and Cultural Studies at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Her new book, Global Knowledge Production about China, explores how the practice of “China‑watching” has evolved over the decades. The book is freely accessible online.

The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia), Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland), Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland), Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) and Centre for South Asian Democracy, University of Oslo (Norway).

We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.
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With commentary on the emergence of a ‘multipolar’ world, of
transatlantic rifts and the rise of ‘middle powers’ ubiquitous, tales of
the decline of something called ‘the West’ seem to be everywhere. Yet
the meanings the idea of ‘the West’ acquires in spaces beyond it tell us
at least as much about the state of the world as portents of its
demise.

Based on a combination of cultural analysis of historical
writings and—most strikingly—deep immersion in often very spicy Chinese
social media fora, Chenchen Zhang’s new book Easting the West: Theorizing the Postliberal Conjuncture from China (Oxford
University Press, 2026) theorises the shifting significations ascribed
to ‘the West’ in China since the late-imperial collision with European
empires. Whether imagined as a source of modernity, a colonial
exploiter, geopolitical rival or—most recently—a civilisation sunk into
decadence and decay, ‘the West’—Zhang shows—is a foil for China-based
worldviews which, whatever their anticolonial or anti-Western
sentiments, are also entangled with Eurocentric hierarchies of race,
nation and gender whose patriarchal and civilisational histories are
rooted at least partly that very same ‘West’.
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Purges: How Dictators Fight to Survive
(Cornell University Press, 2026) by Dr. Edward Goldring delves into one
of the key tactics that autocrats deploy to maintain power: the removal
of individuals from within the regime.

From Kim Jong Un's
execution of his uncle to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's removal of over a
hundred Turkish generals, purges bear significant consequences for the
survival and endurance of autocrats. Yet much remains unknown about why
dictators use purges and whether they achieve their intended effects.

Drawing
on an original global dataset on civilian and military elite purges in
dictatorships in addition to case studies spanning North and South Korea
as well as Turkey, Dr. Goldring examines the logic behind purges and
their consequences. He shows that dictators purge to consolidate power,
punish disloyalty, and scapegoat elites to alleviate popular threats.
But even as purges help dictators consolidate power early in their
tenure, purges actually weaken
their position when they have been in power for a long time, prompting
pushback. In the face of an increasing global shift toward authoritarian
norms, Purges offers critical insight into how autocrats maintain—and sometimes lose—power.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. 
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Michael Aldrich joins John Ross to discuss Old Lhasa: A Biography, his richly detailed portrait of Tibet’s historic capital. It’s the third book in his trilogy on Asian cultural centers. He wrote the first two, on Beijing and Ulaanbaatar, while living in those cities, where he worked as a lawyer. There was no opportunity for this with Lhasa, so he had to rely on multiple trips (from his home in Taiwan) and an incredible amount of reading and research. Rather than writing a conventional history, Aldrich set out to present Lhasa as a living character – a city whose temples, alleyways, legends and surviving traditions can still tell their own stories.

Books mentioned

M.A. Aldrich

The Search for a Vanishing Beijing: A Guide to China’s Capital Through the Ages (Hong Kong University Press, 2006)

Ulaanbaatar beyond Water and Grass: A Guide to the Capital of Mongolia (Hong Kong University Press, 2018)

Old Lhasa: A Biography Originally published by Camphor Press in January 2023 and subsequently reissued in 2025 by Speaking Tiger Books with a new epilogue based on Aldrich’s 2024 return to Tibet.

The episode touches on the amazing story of Ekai Kawaguchi (河口慧海 1866–1945), a Japanese Buddhist monk who spent time in Lhasa in the early 1900s. He is the subject of Scott Berry’s A Stranger in Tibet.

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island. and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan.

The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes.
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