Fiction
'The Stone Sky' by N.K. Jemisin
I still see many people wildly praising the Broken Earth trilogy of which this was the final book. However, while not perhaps as nasty as the first in the series, 'The Fifth Season' (2015). The stories of Essun and her daughter Nassun very distant from each other continues. We do also get insight into the lives of those who had been created in history to develop the various obelisks and to control them, leading on to the disaster which sent the Moon spiralling away and led to the various horrendous seasons the planet (probably Earth) has suffered. These seem to be the start of the stone eaters the mysterious, sometimes vicious statue-like beings who live for millennia. As before, there is so much pain and suffering it is a battle to get through.
Yes, I accept that post-apocalyptic novels are going to be grim and this world suffers a whole series of such incidents. However, so often there is even greater pain. Jemisin seems to create new characters simply to have them suffer. The story moves to a climax in a futuristic city reached by travelling through the Earth's core and this is where Essun and Nassun are finally reunited, only to continue to suffer pain and death; Essun has one consolation, her lover, ripped from her as they travel through the planet; Jemisin is bent on snuffing out even meagre flickers of hope. Even Nassun who survives - you need this spoiler to give you an iota of hope when reading the book - has her hand turned to stone and the mentor Schaffa, a reformed Guardian, is tortured by what is implanted in him before suffering a lingering death, traumatic for Nassun who is probably not even 10 years old yet. Drama, jeopardy, are fine, but by the end of the trilogy I found the writing nothing short of sadistic.
On top of all this you get passages of text which address the reader directly and really patronise you about your blithe life and lack of awareness. Jemisin outlines how she wrote the book while her own mother was dying. In addition you can imagine as a black woman author in science fiction she has gone through the mill to get to the success she has done. However, this spills almost raw on to the page. I tend to not read autobiographies for a reason and while this is clearly not one, the painful emotion is so immediate to the writing that it rips repeatedly into the characters like someone slashing a portrait of people they know to make some point. If I wanted to experience this I would go to the palliative ward of a hospital or to a hospice. As you can imagine, despite all the acclaim, I will never go near an N.K. Jemisin novel ever again.
'Journey without Maps' by Graham Greene
This is Greene's post-war account of the walk he and his cousin Barbara Greene (her gender is never mentioned) made through parts of Sierra Leone and French Guinea and then through Liberia, at the time (1935) on the verge of becoming the last African country not owned by a colonial power. The journey took 4 weeks and covered 350 miles (560Km) over land which was largely unmapped at the time. The book first published in 1936 was withdrawn when it was challenged as being libellous in the portrayal of one of the people the Greenes met. It was republished in 1946 with additional elements added by Greene as a result of his service in Africa during the Second World War. Barbara Greene published her own account 'Land Benighted' (1938) later titled 'Too Late to Turn Back' (1981) which apparently differs significantly from Graham's account. I guess this was because they knew they could not specifically name names and also because for much of the time they were separate while travelling and anyway, of course, the impressions they formed would differ.
The whole journey was moronic. While the Greenes set off with far too much equipment in many ways they were also ill-equipped. They hired up to 25 porters each to carry 50lbs (23Kg), paid in silver shillings. Though some were reliable others were not and in particular kept protesting that the next destination was too far away for them to reach. They were dependent on turning up in various villages and being welcomed by the local chief, the character of each one varied considerably. Sometimes they stopped at missions or Liberian government stations. The poverty is mind boggling, but as my brother who travelled west to east across northern-central Africa in the 1990s, revealed in many places things are little different from when the Greenes passed through sixty years earlier.
There was not really much to see just jungle, rivers and various villages so a lot of the book is about the people that they met and the differences between the settlements. There is distinction in particular between the French-controlled areas and the Liberian ones. There is a fascination for the 'devils' i.e. men who effectively acted as priests of indigenous religions with very strick rules and elaborate demonstrations. Greene does not moralise on these the way missionaries might but as with the different characters, because there is little of variety to report from one night's stopover village to the next, he goes into detail on the different devils he sees and hears about.
The fact that a white man could simply travel this way and indeed his cousin was largely carried the bulk of the way in a hammock, does sum up the kind of colonial viewpoint at a time when it was coming to its apex and was soon about to crumble into neo-colonial behaviour. In many ways Liberia as not having a colonising government running it, was the shape of things to come as effectively as Greene shows towards the end it was large corporations that happily asserted themselves in the controlling role but lacking even the meagre concern for the populations.
Overall not a particularly exciting or engaging book. Greene possibly picked one of the most tedious journeys he could have done with little visible history or striking natural scenes or unforlding drama - bar the upcoming election which seemed a foregone conclusion anyway. It shows that while he might have believed differently Greene was not a travel writer and would have been better having written a drama unfolding in a single village which could have allowed him to show the context of Liberia at the time rather than us feeling we have traipsed along unchanging roads with him for many hours.
'Deep Waters' ed. by Martin Edwards
This is the last of the four anthologies in the British Library Classic Crime collection that I have. However, even when it was published in 2019 there were already nine others, so it seems I will have a lot of book hunting to do in the years ahead. The British Library books do not turn up second hand as much these days as I guess they are so prized but I will keep my eyes open even though being unemployed and struggling to pay my rent I no longer have the money to go out looking for them in my own town let alone further afield.
Anyway, despite the sub-title of this collection 'Mysteries on the Waves' in fact this anthology covers murders in all sorts of bodies of water from a swimming pools through rivers and canals up to the sea. A number of them are what Edwards terms 'reverse mysteries' in that we see the crime and then it is a question of how whoever is doing the detection works out what has happened. Another theme that turns up in a number of them is an apparently lost sailor reappearing to disrupt the life of someone who once knew them, whether to their detriment or that of the returning seafarer.
Edwards does have some authors he likes to return to, Arthur Conan Doyle is one of them, but rather than 'The Adventure of the Abbey Grange' (1905) which does include a returning sailor, instead in this volume he features 'The Adventure of the "Gloria Scott"' (1893) which has some similarities. This is recounted directly from Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson and effectively details his first case. The father of one of Holmes's few friends, Victor Trevor, based in Norfolk, is distressed by the presence of a servant Hudson who then disappears. A letter arrives from Hampshire that seems not to make much sense but leads to Victor's father dying of a stroke. Holmes cracks the code and as a result, finds it is a warning about Hudson. The story of the father's criminal and indeed murderous past aboard a transportation ship then comes to light. There is not a real mystery despite the fact that a man was able to effectively conceal his past and become wealthy and successful as a result of what he did.
There is a similar narrative in 'The Echo of Mutiny' (1912) written by R. [Richard] Austin Freeman. As with the story included in 'Serpents in Eden' (2016) which I read back in April: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-books-i-read-in-april.html this one features Dr. John Thorndyke, a doctor effectively working as a forensic scientist uncovering crimes which the reader has often already witnessed as here. Thorndyke is never in at the arrest but always seems assured that the evidence he provides will lead to a conviction. If you are interested in Freeman's writing, there are freely-accessible online copies of his collection 'The Singing Bone' (1912) in which this story features along with others. This story is set on the Thames Estuary and features the disappearance of a relief lighthouseman. We know who the killer is, but what attracted readers was the thoroughness of his analysis to identify the person. I must also say I was really struck by Freeman's descriptions of the setting, the weather, etc., aspects which he does with a real richness and other authors in the collection tended to forget to cover; maybe inhibited by the parameters of a short story.
Another of the stories with rich description is 'Four Friends and Death' (1935). It was written by Christopher St. John Sprigg. Another of his featured in 'Miraculous Mysteries' (2017) that I read last month: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2026/07/books-i-read-in-july.html He was an aeronautical writer as well crime author and was killed in 1937 in the Spanish Civil War. This story is set in Vigo harbour when among four friends on a yacht one suddenly dies from poisoning. The surviving three have to work out who among them was the culprit. You feel both that this was would make a great short play and it is also reminiscent, perhaps intentionally of 'The Pardoner's Tale' in 'Canterbury Tales' (1400) in which three friends set out to kill Death. It is deftly handled and the ending may surprise readers. As Edwards notes, Sprigg's early death in his 30th year, denied readers of more stories. Still, as a committed Marxist, he probably felt he was doing the right thing to fight to defend the Spanish Republic from Fascist forces.
Perhaps the story I enjoyed most was one again with great description, which really conjures up the Embankment area of London in the immediate post-war era. It is 'A Question of Timing' (1946) by Phyllis Bentley. It is written in the first person and actually details the prevention of a murder when an astute author, Robert Beringer, lightly disabled as a result of wartime naval service, is alert to stranger happenings on his usual walking route. Some might find it pat, but I enjoyed the different angle of this and realities of British society at that specific time. Maybe the romantic ending will irritate some, but seemed realistic. I have not come across any of the stories featuring Miss. Marian Phipps as a the detective, but would certainly be interested in reading them if I saw them.
'The Thimble River Mystery' (1950) by Josephine Bell [Doris Bell Collier] is set on a fictional river (probably influenced by the River Hamble) close to Southampton. Of all the stories in this collection, it has the greatest technical detail associated with boats. Knowledge of these, plus the challenges of mooring a boat on a tidal stretch of a river are at the heart of the solution, in part combined with a dose of social class snobbery, which I imagine you would encounter in such contexts even now over 75 years on. Amateur David Wintringham fortunately has knowledge of such things and is able as a result to work out how and when the murder of Mr. Harcourt a resident of one of the boats. Wintringham is called in when a friend of his, another boat owner in the area, John Chudley is seen as a prime suspect. At times the technical language can rather bewilder the reader without such knowledge, but Bell is very successful in conjuring up a very specific setting and milieu which gives a feeling of authenticity, though modern readers might shudder at Wintringham being so firmly convinced of the apparently socially 'inappropriate' ambitions of the murderer.
Another story which succeeds in painting a vivid portrait of its setting, this time in Cornwall, is 'The Queer Fish' (1955) by Kem [Kemys] Bennet. Though he had this story made into a movie 'Doublecross' (1956) featuring William Hartnell and Robert Shaw, is certainly, as Edwards observes, unknown today. Shown from the perspective of a fisherman and docker, Albert Pascoe, as he is engaged to transport two dubious characters across the sea to France. He is eager to catch salmon but it is too early in the season and he faces a heavy fine if he does. The descriptions of his home port and the journey, the people in the village are well done. Modern readers might work out the twist at the end in advance, but overall it is a satisfying story.
'The Eight-Mile Lock' by L.T. Meade [Elizabeth Meade Smith] and Robert Eustace [Robert Barton] is, as the title suggests, based on a canal. Published in 1897, it follows a case of theft of an expensive bracelet from a boat on which John Bell, their 'ghost investigator' detective a little like William Hope Hodgson's Mr. Carnacki that I discussed last month. Bell rowing along the canal where the boat was moored and one that he has often travelled along is asked to help out a lock-keeper who has been troubled by spectral voices calling out to him to open the lock in the middle of the night. Bell stays with him and this case actually proves to be connected to the jewellery theft, perhaps unsurprising given a precious metal bracelet concealed in water will not corrode, though the explanation of the ghostly voice turns up to be more a technological one that modern readers might not accept in the way ones from the 1890s might have done.
Another story again featuring technology that modern readers might question is 'The Pool of Secrets' (1935) by Gwyn Evans. He was one of a number of authors of Sexton Blake and pulp stories. This may explain why this story has rather outré elements to it. The detective, Quentin Drex (initials 'Q.E.D.) with the mark of the Scarlet Skull branded on his forehead has a robot butler with a built-in answerphone and travels to the murder site, Cheriton Hall in Hertfordshire opening as a country club, in his personal 'gyroplane'. There is a rumour of a ghost called 'the Silver Bride' haunting the swimming pool; later it becomes the 'Shimmering Death'. Not only does the victim die when going into the swimming pool, their body is immediately stripped down to the bone. Modern readers with a greater familiarity with water life around the world than readers of 1935, might find this rather less of a mystery. There seems to lots of pottering around in hedges and the narrative rather lacks drive, I suppose in part dependent on the exotic methods of killing. Alongside the other stories this does come over as a peculiarity.
Another one set in a swimming pool, unsurprisingly, is 'The Swimming Pool' (1936) by H.C. [Henry Christopher] Bailey. It features his usual amateur detective, Reggie Fortune, a story of which featured in 'Serpents in Eden' and was better than this one. Edwards, as I have noted before, explains how post-war Bailey's style of writing fell from favour. However, even here especially what he has Fortune say comes over as pretty peculiar, especially his 'expletives' like 'my hat' and 'my last aunt' let alone the repeated plaintive, 'Why police?' This does make him seem not simply eccentric but actually mentally challenged and this really reduces the reader's confidence in his abilities.
Perhaps as might be expected, like 'The Pool of Secrets', the swimming pool is at a large house, in this case Heath Hall on the outskirts of London. There are suspicions over the previous death of the owner Joseph Colborn and later he is exhumed to discover he was poisoned. His nurse seems to be a likely culprit but as disappeared only for a headless corpse which at least seems likely to be hers turns up in the swimming pool. Forensic evidence shows the woman was killed somewhere.
There are some decent twists, especially when the severed head of the victim is found among luggage. Fortune does push the story on, but you feel it could have been so much better with a less bumbling detective. Despite Bailey's enduring inter-war popularity you can see why he is not now remembered. There is something jarring about this main character pontificating among grim details, something that Christie with Poirot and Sayers with Wimsey, managed far better thann Bailey does. He does not seem in control of his protagonist and the story suffers gravely as a result.
'The Gift of the Emperor' by E.W. [Ernest William] Hornung from 1898 is a well-known short story which rounded off 'The Amateur Cracksman' (1899) collection featuring the gentleman burglar, A.J. Raffles. Hornung was brother-in-law of Conan Doyle and a capable writer in his own right. We naturally see this crime from the view of comrade of the criminal himself. It would have been nice to have seen more of the execution of gaining access to the gemstone, but that is passed over quite quickly and instead we see how the crime is detected. It is deftly written with not just a practical element but also a psychological element which we tend to forget when thinking about Raffles's coups.
I mentioned Hope Hodgson earlier and in this collection he provides 'Bullion!' a locked room mystery but on a ship. Told in the first person the investigator as such is the ship's second mate. Strange noises and crates of gold which seem to disappear and reappear is deftly handled, though luck as much as detection solves the crime. It is a reasonable story though.
C.S. [Cecil Scott] Forester is best known for his historical naval novels, the Hornblower series. This short story published in 1936 is another in which we know who the killer is. The challenge is a technical one for him to dispose of the body, something he feels he has cracked. Overall this comes over like one of the 'Tales of the Unexpected' from Roald Dahl, rather than a standard murder mystery or even one of the reversed ones in this collection. It is reasonably well executed, but I imagine many readers will foresee the conclusion.
Edmund Crispin [Robert Montgomery] is another of the authors that Edwards has featured before; one of his stories is in 'Miraculous Mysteries'. His story in this collection is 'Man Overboard' (1954). It is very brief and involves Gervase Fen disentangling a story recounted to him in a very Holmesian manner. Though the sea is involved it is more a couple of particularities of US culture which resolve what happened. Another very short story, again with 'Tales of the Unexpected' tone and the coming home to roost sins of the past is 'Seasprite' renamed by Edwards not to give away the motive. It was published in 1963, written by Andrew Garve (Paul Winterton) who apparently often featured boating in his stories. There is not much to get into here, but a scheme for insurance fraud involving boats quickly descends into murder.
James Pattinson was known for his maritime novels. This story, 'The Man Who Was Drowned' (1958) is what I might call a 'sleight of hand' story and in fact reminded me of Crispin's 'Beware of the Trains' from that earlier Edwards collection. The author proves adept and mileading the reader into believing they know what has happened, even when the prime witness makes a mistake. The story is dextrously handled, simple but satisfying and shows Pattinson's skill compared to some of the others included in the collection.
'Death by Water' (1975) is the final story in the collection. It was written by Michael Innes [John Innes Mackintosh Stewart] who also had a story in 'Miraculous Mysteries'. His detective by now Sir John Appleby becomes involved in the disappearance of an old friend Charles Vandervell from his large house close to the north Cornish coast. For a story written in 1975 it does have a feel of a much older one, with the usual suspects from an inter-war crime story with a nephew to inherit, a loyal retainer and an energetic middle-aged woman looking to reinvigorate Vandervell. The body turns up naked and Appleby now feeling it was a murder looks to uncover from the small number of suspects who wanted and could kill Vandervell in that way. Once more, as with 'The Pool of Secrets', pond weed proves vital!
'The Long and Short of It' by Jodi Taylor
As regular readers will know having bought a whole pile of books in Taylor's The Chronicles of St. Mary's series, I increasingly went off them as she piled on the suffering for her characters and I felt, began to take this to unnecessarily great lengths. I have subsequently discovered that under another name she writes horror, so me feeling at times she was straying into torture porn was not misplaced. I did, however, really enjoy what had brought me to the novels in the first place, which was her portrayal of the different times and places that her time travellers visit. Taylor has an excellent attention to detail, real care in her research and also provides logical deductions for what happened that are far stronger than what you tend to see in online discussion. I still think of her portrayal of Troy following the Greek victory and what the 'Trojan Horse' actually was.
I am still loath to give away books until I have read them so soldiered on. I did pick up this one which like 'Long Story Short' (2019) is an anthology of the short stories she produced as e-books to sit, in terms of narrative chronology, between the other books she had produed, the '.5' editions and such like. There is an origins story in here and the last story comes after 'And the Rest is History' (2019), the eighth in the series, which I read in May: https://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2026/05/the-books-i-read-in-may.html and some of the climactic loss and suffering is still apparent. However, in general this book provides what I would have liked to have seen from the entire series.
Taylor seems addicted to making things go wrong for her characters. At the start this was alright and seemed to fit with the light, wry tone of the books, very much in a vein of some British humour. Its kind of old school setting (despite actually being set in our future) and almost public school culture, makes me refer to the 'jolly hockeysticks' feel. The fact she refers to characters regularly by their titles 'Miss. X', 'Mr. Y', etc. in a way now workplace, even an academic one has done for perhaps 50 years, adds to this sense.
As the suffering increased this light tone began to (and continues to) jar with the personal tragedies that were being shown. Anyway, that is about the novels and I am focused here on the short stories. There are references to tragedy - a suicide features - but this is not so much of a dominant part of the stories as in the novels. Instead, the time travel, the rich portrayal of past societies comes to the fore in these stories.
A number of the stories were written for Christmas time. Unsurprisingly the first 'A Child is Born' is one of these. It sees a team head to see the coronation of King William I the Conqueror in December 1066. However, they get drawn off track to help an ordinary family. The balance of trying to focus on their particular mission and deciding how much and how little they should intervene is handled well. It also has a positive outcome, even if an unexpected one.
'Roman Holiday' takes them to Rome at the time Cleopatra VII was coming to Julius Caesar's house. They encounter Caesar's spurned wife, Calpurnia, and get great insight into the way people were received in politicians' houses, something that features a lot in Robert Harris's excellent Cicero trilogy. Again while there are errors, it ends upbeat as they see off an 'attack' and effectively keep history on track. As with so many time travel stories there is the question of whether history actually required the intervention of time travellers in order to lead to the history we know. What I also liked was that Taylor punctured the lazy popular history view of Caesar and Cleopatra, fostered by their portrayal by handsome actors, rather than, as Taylor does, referencing more accurate portrayals.
'Christmas Present' naturally is one from that time of the year. Slightly referencing 'A Christmas Carol' (1843), it does touch on tragedy in that Kleio the Muse of History who also happens to work as a PA, Mrs. Partridge, to St. Mary's Director comes to warn the usual protagonist, Dr. Madeleine 'Max' Maxwell that the head of security, Major Ian Guthrie is on the verge of suicide following the abduction of a woman he loved, Elspeth Grey along with a colleague, ten years earlier. They were supposed to be going to 12th Century Jerusalem but it turns out St. Mary's prime antagonist Clive Ronan dumped them instead in 60 CE Colchester about to be ravaged by Boudicca's forces leaving few of the town's population alive. The Roman city is very well portrayed though at times you feel the struggle to get clear verges on the slapstick, but it is adventurous with a positive outcome, even though bringing up another challenge of time travel that Elspeth has been away in her experience for some hours, but for Ian it has been a decade.
'Ships and Strings and Wedding Rings' takes Max and helpers back to Ancient Egypt somewhere that Taylor likes to feature. This is an interesting take and effectively takes the previous story further. From the novels we know that Grey finds it difficult after her abduction to fit back into the work of St. Mary's even though Max (foolishly) pressures her to get back to normal. On a mission she not only illegally takes a modern gun into the past but then loses it. This is a serious crime which could compound her problems by having her arrested by the Time Police. Max feels an obligation to recover the gun and so ends up lingering around an Egyptian ship yard that the original team were observing. This allows Taylor to provide a rich historical picture before a harum-scarum chase after the gun and then Max having to give up her wedding ring - having married Chief Leon Farrell - to buy it back. While Grey's mental health is a downbeat element, matters are resolved. This shows the impact of time travel on people without having to go into torturous territory. There is a further resolution which I will not spoil.
'The Very First Damned Thing' is an origins story showing Dr. Bairstow, perhaps it is suggested, from the future, working with British government agencies to establish St. Mary's. He persuades them of its value by taking the committee to witness the closing stages of the Battle of Waterloo, running into some of his future staff. With funding secured, he begins to build his team, very much in the vibe of 'The Magnificent Seven' (1960), counting off people as he recruits them. This is apparently easy as he already knows them from their futures. It does again raise the issue of cause and effect and which order these have to come in, something often cropping up in time travel stories.
We also get to see more of this future Britain which has been wracked by civil unrest with a popular uprising against Fascist forces notably in London and Cardiff, climaxing in the so-called Battersea Barricades which many future St. Mary's staff were involved with. At the start of the novels, it was not clear really what the time period was and, in fact, dated references seemed to suggest it was before our current time, especially in terms of technology and social attitudes. This story shows how, in fact it was some time in the mid-21st Century and, while it is not clear, a Fascist regime appears to have managed to turn social behaviour back to what it was a century earlier.
I think 'The Great St. Mary's Day Out' is my favourite story of the anthology. As a treat more of the staff than usual go on a trip to watch the first performance of 'Hamlet' (1601) by William Shakespeare. As usual various members get tangled up in events, largely outside The Globe theatre than within it. Taylor is great at conjuring up the experience and also drawing out in fact how little had changed between the 14th and early 17th centuries in that area of South London. Again we have the question of whether the time travellers were required to be there in order to ensure Shakespeare did not suffer serious injury or die 15 years earlier than we know from out history.
'My Name is Markham' is written from the perspective of the deputy head of security at St. Mary's and one of the characters most prone to disaster. St. Mary's is having a Christmas party for local children, which again feels more 1950s than 2050s, but there you go. In the middle of preparations, Max, Markham and Peterson, another of this history staff are sent back to 878 CE to see whether King Alfred, while in hiding on the Isle of Athelney, following his defeat at the Battle of Chippenham actually burned the cakes as the legend says. Taylor once more provides a great picture of a late Anglo-Saxon village and its practices. While things go wrong and there is the need to use modern technology, the time-travellers scrape through to get back for the party. The treatment of Markham by his Director, as is sometimes commented on, is not nice and in reality would be inappropriate for a manager. St. Mary's is not unionised and its personnel practices seem very dated. It is clear that this is an aspect that the British Fascists of the 21st Century have also reversed. Given the current political climate maybe this is not such an unlikely thing as it might have appeared a decade ago.
'A Perfect Storm' is the final story in this anthology and unfortunately does not involve any time travel. Instead St. Mary's is trying to secure a contract with a movie maker to provide historical information and costumes for a series of movies, bringing in very useful income for the institution. Having had a friend who in the 1990s was a historical advisor on movies, I feel Taylor has nailed the film makers feel that they needed to have such advice, but then that they entirely ignored it. It is a satire, with exploding rocks, but it is also accurate concerning this tension. My friend listed all the anachronisms that had been included which ran exactly contrary to what he had advised. While the money was welcome he did not feel he had achieved anything. I imagine now with 'policing' of TV dramas and movies by viewers with a very firm, but inaccurate perception of history, notably on the presence of black people in the UK before 1948 and in the Ancient Greek world, this is only just going to get worse.
Thus, overall, this book combines the best bits of Taylor's writing in portraying the past and raising questions, but also connecting with many of the questions that time travel fiction throws up, but subtly. Consequently I will read 'Long Story Short' in hope of more of this kind of writing, though apprehensive that as those stories will be set later in the St. Mary's narrative they will be wallowing in misery the way the novels have gone.
Non-Fiction
'A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia' by Aaron L. Friedberg
This book was published in 2012 so preceded the coming of Xi Jinping to control China. It is far better than ''Inside China's Grand Strategy' (2010) by Ye Zicheng. This book actually had quite sober analysis. It broke it down into relatively small sections and worked through the history of the relationship between the two countries in the Cold War era and beyond, portraying the balance that successive US governments have tried to strike between trying to work with China especially as a counterbalance to the USSR and then as a trading partner, but also to restrain its growing power. China has had a more consistent policy, seeking to expand, at least after 1979, its soft power throughout the central, southern, south-eastern and eastern regions of Asia.
It has learned to appear to be compliant with international expectations as Ye kept on harping on about, but in reality has always given the least it can get away with. It favours a multi-lateral world as it feels it can be stronger than in a bipolar one. Of course, this was the situation before Xi came to power and has gone full out in terms of Chinese assertion, believing the world should come not to accept China's view on matters but his personal view. While Xi is a capitalist and Mao was a Communist, in fact their views on what the world 'must' have are very similar. Even so, as yet Xi has not done as much harm to China as Mao did. Friedberg, though not explicitly, shows that without Mao's hare-brained schemes China would have advanced to where it is now decades earlier. It has been fortunate for the West that Mao was such an aggressive yet poor, misguided leader.
Friedberg carries a lot of military details about the USA's and China's positions in the Pacific and Asian regions which is not usual in many academic books which also address the economic side, but does show well how this contest is on a variety of fronts. While Friedberg rightly bemoans the US shibboleth of the 1990s that capitalism must lead to democracy, despite this being disproven in China in 1989, he does have that US belief that the American form of capitalism of itself contains some miraculous power to change societies. He does not emphasise this as much as some of his contemporaries will or certainly did back in the 20th Century, but it is clear he cannot shake this form of capitalism as his starting point.
Friedberg does retain some optimism and lays out a range of scenarios for the future. He does think that there is a chance of political and social reform in China. However, in fact, 14 years on it has turned out that the country has gone down the path of almost his extreme 'hard' scenario. There has not yet been a war to seize Taiwan, but certainly the racial oppression especially in Xinjiang, that he cautioned about has become a reality. Of course, he really had no hope of foreseeing how unpredictable US foreign policy was going to become under Trump. While he has been keen on restricting China especially economically but also militarily, the favouring of North Korea over South Korea and the unwavering support for Russia in a dragging on land war, that might have seemed unlikely in 2012, has turned the basis for Friedberg's analysis on its head.
This is a largely balance book making use of as many Chinese sources as possible. Friedberg's outlook is a little constrained by the society in which he lived. However, he makes no reckless judgements and this is a sound book if you want to explore the shifting relations between the two countries, especially in the already almost forgotten period between Deng and Xi.
