A vital account of how some of China's most important writers, filmmakers, and artists haver overcome crackdowns and censorship to challenge the Chinese Communist Party on its most sacred ground, its monopoly on history"
Ian Johnson Book order
Ian Johnson is an award-winning writer whose work delves into society, religion, and history. He offers profound insights into Chinese society and its transformations. Johnson guides readers through complex topics with a precise style, emphasizing historical and cultural contexts.






- 2023
- 2021
Offers the full story of a fateful alliance between past and future mortal enemies--long preceding the well-known Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact--whose dimensions were kept secret from the outside world and yet which set the stage for World War Two and its outcome.
- 2020
Renaissance Man
- 350 pages
- 13 hours of reading
The life of Thomas Watson, a multifaceted figure of the late 16th century, is explored through his diverse talents as a classicist, poet, and government agent. Ian Johnson delves into Watson's literary works and the influential figures he interacted with, including notable contemporaries like Christopher Marlowe and the Earl of Oxford. The narrative also addresses the scandals that marked Watson's life, providing a comprehensive look at his contributions to literature and society during a dynamic period in history.
- 2019
Unbelievable Barry Town covers the club's golden decade where they won the Welsh Premier seven times, through the years of playing as an amateur team under controversial owner Stuart Lovering, until the fans were able to take over and turn the club around to once again play in Europe in 2019.
- 2017
The Souls of China
- 464 pages
- 17 hours of reading
In no society on Earth was there such a ferocious attempt to eradicate all trace of religion as in modern China. But now, following a century of violent antireligious campaigns, China is awash with new temples, churches, and mosques - as well as cults, sects, and politicians trying to harness religion for their own ends. Driving this explosion of faith is uncertainty - over what it means to be Chinese, and how to live an ethical life in a country that discarded traditional morality and is still searching for new guideposts. The Souls of China is the result of some fifteen years of studying and travelling around China. The message of Ian Johnson's extraordinary book is that China is now experiencing a 'Great Awakening' on a vast scale. Everywhere long-suppressed religions are rebuilding, often in new forms, and reshaping the values and behaviours of entire communities.
- 2015
Ian Johnson
- 60 pages
- 3 hours of reading
Since his 2008 monograph, Ian Johnson has had six solo shows and undergone an evolution, while remaining just as jarringly cool and full of life. This new book presents all-new paintings and drawings by Johnson in his signature style: portraits of jazz musicians from the '40s, '50s, and '60s that were produced using gouache, acrylic or pen on paper or wood panel. Johnson combines abstract background shapes with figurative representations to create jaw-dropping pieces that succeed at evoking the music of each artist.
- 2011
Ian Johnson offers a little known story of how the CIA & a former Nazi intelligence agent gave radical Islam a foothold in Europe.
- 2009
This unique volume offers for the first time a comprehensive introduction to the literary theory and criticism produced during the Middle Ages. The essays cover all the main traditions in Medieval Latin, Byzantine Greek, and the major European vernaculars, as well as the humanist debates on literature and its uses.
- 2005
'Illuminating ... Johnson has not only lifted a corner of the curtain which covers China's reality beyond its glittering eastern cities; he has drawn the whole curtain' The Times Literary Supplement In Wild Grass, Pulitzer Prize-winning Ian Johnson describes a China caught between the desire for change percolating up from below and the ossified political structure above. He recounts the stories of three ordinary people who find themselves finding oppression and government corruption, risking imprisonment and even death. A young architecture student, a bereaved daughter, and a peasant legal clerk are the unlikely heroes of these stories, private citizens cast by unexpected circumstances into surprising roles.
