A FINANCIAL TIMES AND NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023Johnsons stories bring ... this history chillingly alive Christina Patterson Sunday TimesAn indelible feat of reporting and an urgent read ... Its a privilege to read books like these TePing Chen author of Land of Big NumbersA documentary filmmaker who uncovered a Maoera death camp an independent journalist who gave voice to the millions who suffered through Covid a magazine publisher who dodged the secret police these are some of the people who make up Sparks Chinas Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future a vital account of how some of Chinas most important writers filmmakers and artists have overcome crackdowns and censorship to challenge the Chinese Communist Party on its most sacred ground its monopoly on history.In traditional China dynasties rewrote history to justify their rule by proving that their predecessors were unworthy of holding power. The Chinese Communist Party builds on these ideas to whitewash its misdeeds and justify its rule.But in recent years critical thinkers from across the land have begun to challenge this stateled disremembering. Using digital technologies to bypass Chinas legendary surveillance state their samizdat journals guerilla media posts and underground films document a pattern of disasters from past famines and purges to the ethnic clashes and virus outbreaks of the present.Based on years of research in Xi Jinpings China Sparks challenges stereotypes of a China where the state has quashed all free thought revealing instead a country engaged in one of humanitys great struggles of memory against forgetting a battle that will shape the China that emerges in the mid21st century.