Professor Wai-yee Li’s newly-released translation of Kong Shangren (孔尚任)’s The Peach Blossom Fan (桃花扇), a masterpiece of Chinese drama which meditates on the collapse of the Ming dynasty through the focal point of two lovers, is a welcome companion in times of political strife and decline. Scene 3, for example, in which academy students prohibit a besmirched official from participating in their learned activities, had me laughing out loud. — Hardy Stewart

Taiwanese in Nanyō during the Japanese Colonial Period (日治時期在南洋的臺灣人) by Chung Shu-min (鍾淑敏) is a magisterial study that is foundational to understanding Taiwan’s place in the region. At the same time, after spending most of the last three years in Japan, Taiwan, and Indonesia, I was struck by how helpful this book is for understanding relationships between East Asia and Southeast Asia historically and in the present. — Will Sack

I Have No Enemies: The Life and Legacy of Liu Xiaobo, by Dazhi Wu and Perry Link, tells the moving story of China’s most famous dissident. Liu won the Nobel Prize in 2010 (there was an empty chair at the Oslo ceremony) and died while in prison for standing up to China’s state oppression. If you want to learn about Chinese political thought and intellectual currents since the first years of post-Mao reform, this is the book to read. — Dorinda (Dinda) Elliott

The Man Who Stayed Behind is a memoir chronicling the life of Sidney Rittenberg, my mentor in China—an American who was with Mao, Deng, and the CPC leadership in Yan’an following the Long March, and remained for the majority of his life in China as a dedicated, and eventually, disillusioned member of the communist movement. He endured 16 years of imprisonment during two political purges. This book offers a rare insider’s perspective on China’s tumultuous mid-20th-century history and explores the complex interplay between idealism, ideology, and the realities of post-1949 China.” — Mitchell Presnick

Fragile Cargo: China’s Wartime Race to Save the Treasures of the Forbidden City, by Adam Brookes, recounts how a team of dedicated museum curators packed up the most important treasures from the Forbidden City in Beijing —a million pieces—and secretly moved them thousands of miles across China to escape war with Japan. Sixteen years later, having endured the violence and chaos of war, the brave curators finally managed to load their precious cargo onto a ship headed for Taiwan, even as the Kuomintang army were escaping the Communists. To this day, to Beijing’s chagrin, half of China’s most valuable art works are displayed in Taiwan at the National Palace Museum. — Dorinda (Dinda) Elliott

Many of China’s earliest independent documentary films, dating from the early days of reforms in the 1980s and ‘90s, have been forgotten, long since buried by state censors. But The Forgotten Vision: Origins of China’s New Documentary Films (被遗忘的影像), co-authored in 2006 by Li Xing (李幸), Liu Xiaoqi (刘晓茜), and Wang Jifang (汪继芳), helps bring the history back to life. The book features candid interviews with nine key figures whose contributions shaped the trajectory of China’s “New Documentary Movement.” They shed light on the rapidly evolving media landscape: many of these filmmakers initially operated within the state system, pioneering new ethical and artistic approaches to documentary film even as they navigated the challenges of censorship. As more of the historically important documentaries in this groundbreaking field guide resurface, the biographical insight and critical evaluation found in this book will only become an increasingly valuable resource for scholars, curators, and enthusiasts alike. — Sam Maclean

Robert Darnton’s The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History reveals characteristics of French cultural history by interpreting numerous fairytales, bizarre historical events, and more. — Li Gong

Taiwanese in Nanyō during the Japanese Colonial Period

by Chung Shu-min

The Man Who Stayed Behind

by Sidney Rittenberg and Amanda Bennett

The Forgotten Vision: Origins of China’s New Documentary Films

by Li Xing, Liu Xiaoqi, and Wang Jifang