Böcker av Julian Gewirtz

A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year A BBC History Magazine Best Book of the Year "Excellent...A fascinating, authoritative account of the paths for China's future explored during a decade long buried by official, state-sponsored history."--Julia Lovell, Foreign Policy "A vivid and readable account...Exceptionally well-researched." --Andrew Nathan, Foreign Affairs "The definitive book on China in the 1980s in terms of the depth of research and originality of the argument." ―Minxin Pei, author of The Sentinel State "A gift to our understanding of today's China."―Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition On a hike in Guangdong Province in January 1984, Deng Xiaoping was warned that his path was a steep and treacherous one. "Never turn back," the Chinese leader replied. That became a mantra as the government forged ahead with reforms in the face of heated contestation over the nation's future. Recovering the debates of China in the 1980s, Julian Gewirtz traces the Communist Party's diverse attitudes toward markets, state control, and sweeping technological change, as well as freewheeling public argument over political liberalization. Deng Xiaoping's administration considered bold proposals from within the party and without, but after Tiananmen, Beijing systematically erased these discussions of alternative directions. Using newly available Chinese sources, Gewirtz details how the leadership purged the key reformist politician Zhao Ziyang, quashed the student movement, recast the transformations of the 1980s as the inevitable products of consensus, and indoctrinated China and the international community in the new official narrative. Never Turn Back offers a revelatory look at how different China's rise might have been and at the foundations of strongman rule under Xi Jinping, who has intensified the policing of history to bolster his own authority.

Julian Gewirtz is a China expert who speaks fluent Mandarin.Graduated from Harvard, was a Rhodes Scholar, and earned aPhD at OxfordServed in the Obama administrationPublished articles on Asia for New York Times, WallStreet Journal, Washington Post, The Guardian, Financial Times, Harper’s,and Foreign Policy.His book Unlikely Partners: Chinese Reformers,Western Economists, and the Making of Global China was published by HarvardUniversity PressAs a poet, Gewirtz allows for fierce observationsbetween the state and a solitary worker, asking us where does justice exist andfor whom.  Gewirtz can home in on a single character or ahistorical moment, allowing the reader to interpret the connections betweenpeople and place.Gewirtz has worked and lived in China, lending first-handexperience and insight into his narrative voice. His poems refer to and utilize historical accounts,artwork, news-clippings, and personal encounters. Gewirtz has published poetry criticism and nonfictionessays in The Economist, Parnassus: Poetry in Review, Los Angeles Review ofBooks, Poetry Foundation, and The Washington Post.

The 1980s saw spirited debate in China, as officials and the public pressed for economic and political liberalization. But after Tiananmen, the Communist Party erased the reform debate from memory. Julian Gewirtz shows how the leadership expunged alternative visions of Chinäs future and set the stage for the policing of history under Xi Jinping.

With Deng Xiaoping's blessing, Mao's successors scoured the globe for fresh ideas to launch domestic prosperity and global economic power. Yet China's government did not publicize its engagement with Western-style innovations, claiming instead that economic reinvention was the Party's achievement alone. Julian Gewirtz sets forth the truer story.