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Podcast: New Books in East Asian Studies
Episode: Joseph Torigian, "Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion: Elite Power Struggles in the Soviet Union and China After Stalin and Mao" (Yale UP, 2022)
Description: Unfortunately, one takeaway for readers of this book should be the difficulty that not only outside analysts but even party insiders face when trying to understand elite politics in Leninist regimes. Sinologists have always struggled to see inside the “black box,” and the track record is not strong. Yet getting history right is immensely important, as the past is one of the few places that allow us to understand structural features that might persist.– Joseph Torigian, Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion (2022)The political successions in the Soviet Union and China after Stalin and Mao, respectively, are often ex...