Samuel Burt

Samuel Burt recently graduated in PPE from the University of Oxford. He is a regular contributor to Culture Wars and the Oxford Left Review. He blogs on the politics, society and culture of modern China at Smash All Old Things.

'Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War' by Stephen Platt. Book review.

The central message of the book is that foreign intervention in the struggle between the Qing Dynasty and the Taipings, though rationalised (often sincerely) on humanitarian grounds, had disastrous consequences during and after the war.

By Samuel Burt

/ 18 Aug 2012

'Tiger Head, Snake Tails' by Jonathan Fenby: book review

Big-but-piecemeal reform will only exacerbate weaknesses elsewhere in the Chinese system, since everything is connected... Fenby isn't just right about the biases and simplifications that are commonplace in airport-book ‘polemics’ about China - he is right for the right reasons.

By Samuel Burt

/ 16 May 2012