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Richard McGregor's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Richard McGregor recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Richard McGregor's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1

A Case Of Two Cities

Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Bureau is summoned by an official of the Party to lead a highly charged corruption investigation. The tentacles have spread through the police force, the civil service, the vice trade and deep into the criminal underworld. less
Recommended by Richard McGregor, and 1 others.

Richard McGregorMy fifth choice is a novel, a series of detective novels set in Shanghai. Specifically, A Case of Two Cities, by Qiu Xiaolong, who is great. He’s a Chinese guy, but he lives in the States. He’s got a series of detective novels and the key character is a detective who is also a famous poet. This detective is not a revolutionary, but he’s a bit leery of the system and suspicious of promotion,... (Source)

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2
A full-scale examination of the inner workings of Japan's political and industrial system. less
Recommended by Richard McGregor, and 1 others.

Richard McGregorIt’s a classic book from someone who has an uncompromising point to make, and Van Wolferen backs himself with the most prodigious research. He goes right back into the pre-Meiji period in Japan, and looks at how Japanese power structures were developed. The detail is stupefying in its thoroughness. (Source)

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3
The riveting story behind NBA giant Yao Ming, the ruthless Chinese sports machine that created him, and the East-West struggle over China’s most famous son.

The NBA’s 7‘6" All-Star Yao Ming has changed the face of basketball, revitalizing a league desperate for a new hero while becoming a multimillionaire pitchman for Reebok and McDonald’s. But his journey to America—like that of his forgotten foil, 7‘1" Wang Zhizhi—began long before he set foot on the world’s brightest athletic stage.

Operation Yao Ming opens with the story of the two boys’ parents, basketball...
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Recommended by Richard McGregor, and 1 others.

Richard McGregorI don’t have any interest in basketball, but the great thing about this story is that it becomes another way of telling the story of China. Look at the story of Yao Ming’s mother, for example. By the time Yao Ming was a star for the Houston Rockets, his mother is this sort of innocent, loyal Mommy, in the kitchen in Houston, making her son lovely Chinese food that he can’t get in the States. But... (Source)

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4

Chinese Lessons

A first-hand account of the remarkable transformation of China over the past forty years as seen through the life of an award-winning journalist and his four Chinese classmates

As a twenty-year-old exchange student from Stanford University, John Pomfret spent a year at Nanjing University in China. His fellow classmates were among those who survived the twin tragedies of Mao's rule--the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution--and whose success in government and private industry today are shaping China's future. Pomfret went on to a career in journalism, spending the...
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Recommended by Richard McGregor, and 1 others.

Richard McGregorI found this book really unputdownable. We’ve all read lots of books about the reforms under Deng Xiaoping since 1979. Pomfret takes it straight down to street level, almost, with the story of five people that he knew, former classmates he had met at university as a foreign student in Nanjing in 1981. He was able to trace their lives intimately from when he left them. The book really has this... (Source)

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5

Chinese Shadows

The second of Leys's trilogy on China's Cultural Revolution, describing the cultural and political upheaval under Mao's regime and expressing criticism of its Western supporters. less

Ian BurumaThis book came like a bolt of lightning, because in the seventies – despite the fact that the Cultural Revolution was still going on – many China watchers were starry eyed about Maoism as a wonderful experiment. Those who went to China saw what they wanted to see, and usually came back with glowing accounts of a New China, and a uniquely collective and altruistic human being not driven by... (Source)

Richard McGregorHe was a great defender of Chinese culture, and the refinements of Chinese culture. He wrote a wonderful essay once on the art of calligraphy. But he made a trip back to China in 1976 and was absolutely horrified at the changes that had taken place. For example, Mao had knocked down the old city walls. There’s one chapter where he goes to find one of the famous old city gates, which he thinks has... (Source)

Orville SchellHe is a marvellous writer, and was one of those people who dared to say things. The book came out in 1977, as interest in China was beginning to incubate. He was in Beijing and he looked at the toll that had been taken on Chinese culture, archaeology, religion – he looked right down the barrel of the gun and described the Cultural Revolution in all its horrific dimension. He’s very Western, an... (Source)

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