Matt Sheehan
Matt Sheehan is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Country Driving by Peter Hessler
So the first China book is Country Driving by Peter Hler, New Yorker correspondent in a lot of way for people of my generation who went over there and lived there. He's kind of like the godfather.
on a podcast · 15 Sep 2026 · Report
From the Soil by Fei Xiaotong
It's called From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society. It's a book by a Chinese sociologist in the 30s and 40s guy named Faoong who was trained in the west, went back to China, applied kind of western sociological paradigms to studying Chinese villages and agriculture. And it's just one of the most insightful books about Chinese culture. So, I'd encourage people to to seek that one out. I read it every 3 or four years.
on a podcast · 15 Sep 2026 · Report
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
And the last one, just for fun, uh Zadeie Smith's On Beauty. You know, you had Zadeie on the show. I just I think she's the goat. I think she's the best. And On Beauty is uh just a hilarious novel of an academic family. And um you know, her ability to to pierce into the psychology and the insecurities of of each of us [music] and and put that on blast in a way is just I don't know, it just brings me a lot of joy.
on a podcast · 15 Sep 2026 · Report
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