Books by Julian Gewirtz

Julian Gewirtz is a China expert who speaks fluent Mandarin.Graduated from Harvard, was a Rhodes Scholar, and earned aPhD at OxfordServed in the Obama administrationPublished articles on Asia for New York Times, WallStreet Journal, Washington Post, The Guardian, Financial Times, Harper’s,and Foreign Policy.His book Unlikely Partners: Chinese Reformers,Western Economists, and the Making of Global China was published by HarvardUniversity PressAs a poet, Gewirtz allows for fierce observationsbetween the state and a solitary worker, asking us where does justice exist andfor whom.  Gewirtz can home in on a single character or ahistorical moment, allowing the reader to interpret the connections betweenpeople and place.Gewirtz has worked and lived in China, lending first-handexperience and insight into his narrative voice. His poems refer to and utilize historical accounts,artwork, news-clippings, and personal encounters. Gewirtz has published poetry criticism and nonfictionessays in The Economist, Parnassus: Poetry in Review, Los Angeles Review ofBooks, Poetry Foundation, and The Washington Post.

The 1980s saw spirited debate in China, as officials and the public pressed for economic and political liberalization. But after Tiananmen, the Communist Party erased the reform debate from memory. Julian Gewirtz shows how the leadership expunged alternative visions of Chinäs future and set the stage for the policing of history under Xi Jinping.

With Deng Xiaoping's blessing, Mao's successors scoured the globe for fresh ideas to launch domestic prosperity and global economic power. Yet China's government did not publicize its engagement with Western-style innovations, claiming instead that economic reinvention was the Party's achievement alone. Julian Gewirtz sets forth the truer story.