01
Questions to keep thinking about
Lan Xiaohuan is an economist and associate professor at the School of Economics of Fudan University.
Lan Xiaohuan: Reform of state-owned enterprises.
Yuan Changgeng is an anthropologist and an assistant professor at the Center for Social Sciences, Southern University of Science and Technology.
Yuan Changgeng: 2021 is the second year of the outbreak. We come to accept the fact that perhaps we will live with this sometimes dangerous and sometimes annoying situation for a long time. The world has been at peace for a long time, and we have forgotten the various experiences and wisdoms of surviving in the cramped space in history. Therefore, I am particularly concerned about the accumulation of writing in various states of silence, gloom, regression, and depression, especially those who struggle to maintain self-improvement in the context of external forces that are difficult to reverse, such as the newly published "Mirror images of the Late Qing Dynasty Officialdom: A Study of Du Fengzhi's Diary".
Mirror Images of Late Qing Dynasty Officialdom: A Study of Du Fengzhi's Diary, by Qiu Jie, Social Sciences Academic Press, May 2021.
02
Books to watch
Randall Collins is a sociologist and professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Randall Collins: What I read in 2021 and want to recommend is Situational Breakdowns: Understanding Protest Violence and Other Surprising Outcomes, published in 2019 by Anne Nassauer.
I think that in the data age where short videos and the Internet are all the rage, Nasor's book is an epoch-making breakthrough in the field of sociology. Her book does a good job of showing when potential violence may or may not occur by examining the turning points in protest demonstrations, especially the visual symbols of emotional expression during demonstrations. This is by far the most optimistic evidence on how to avoid violent conflict.
Situational Breakdowns: Understanding Protest Violence and Other Surprising Outcomes, by Anne Nassauer, Oxford University Press, 2019.
Yuan Changgeng: The most important book I read in 2021 is "Qu Qiubai and Cross-Cultural Modernity" by Professor Zhang Lijun of the University of Chinese in Hong Kong. When I was a student, I knew that Teacher Zhang was studying Qu Qiubai, and I had heard that he would explain the early leader of the Chinese Communist Party with a very broad vision. Rao is so, when I really read this book, I still sighed and was impressed. Teacher Zhang is an extremely calm and intelligent researcher of literature and history, who integrates the methods of intellectual history, cultural theory, literary criticism, and even religious and sociological science, showing the spiritual map of this revolutionary leader.
Qu Qiubai and Cross-Cultural Modernity, by Zhang Lijun, Hong Kong Chinese University Press, July 2020.
03
Looking forward to the original work
Jonathan Levy's Ages of American Capitalism: A History of the United States is a new book published in 2021 and no translations have yet been introduced. Domestic readers should learn more about the economic development of the United States and Europe. Although the book is a large tome, it is easy to understand, the entry point is good, and the readability is very strong.
Ages of American Capitalism: A History of the United States,Jonathan Levy, Random House, 2021.4.
Yuan Changgeng: What I have been focusing on has always been experience, especially heterogeneous, marginal experiences that are repelled by the traffic logic of the Internet age. I hope that the publishing industry will introduce some small countries (or regions) of social experience records, such as the recent history of third world countries, sociology, anthropology, non-fiction.