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About The Event
Linda Jaivin’s pacy history of China can be read in an afternoon, but will transform your perspective for a lifetime.
On Tuesday 11 May at the Royal Oak Balmain, Linda will be in conversation about her book The Shortest History of China with Jennifer Byrne, renowned journalist, presenter and long-time host of ABC’s The Book Club.
This in-person event is now fully booked. All those who registered have been contacted. (If you haven’t heard from us, check your spam.)
The event will also be simultaneously live-streamed for free via the Roaring Stories Facebook page. Learn more here.
It will also be made available after the event as a recording, accessible via the Roaring Stories YouTube channel.
ABOUT THE BOOK
From kung-fu to tofu, tea to trade routes, sages to silk, China has influenced cuisine, commerce, military strategy, aesthetics and philosophy across the world for thousands of years. Chinese history is sprawling and gloriously messy. It is full of heroes who are also villains, prosperous ages and violent rebellions, cultural vibrancy and censorious impulses, rebels, loyalists, dissidents and wits. Modern China is seen variously as an economic powerhouse, an icon of urbanisation, a propaganda state or an aggressive superpower seeking world domination. Linda Jaivin distils a vast history into a short, readable account that tells you what you need to know, from China’s philosophical origins to its political system, to the COVID-19 pandemic and where the PRC is likely to lead the world.
The Shortest History of China is out 4 May with Black Inc.Â
ABOUT LINDA JAIVIN
Linda Jaivin is an expert in Chinese politics, language and culture. She has been a foreign correspondent in China, and is co-editor of the China Story Yearbook and associate of the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University. The author of twelve books, she writes regularly for The Saturday Paper, The Monthly and Australian Foreign Affairs.
ABOUT JENNIFER BYRNE
Jennifer Byrne is a senior journalist and broadcaster who has worked in all arms of the media: print, radio and television. Having done her cadetship at The Age and worked on UK’s Fleet Street, she was a founding reporter with Channel Nine’s Sunday program and spent some 12 years travelling the world for 60 Minutes and as an anchor for Foreign Correspondent. She was publishing director of Reed Books, morning presenter on ABC radio, won national awards as interviewer and columnist for The Bulletin and, in May 2006, returned to TV to create the country’s first televised book club, which ran on the ABC for 11 years until 2019.
This event is presented by Roaring Stories Bookshop Balmain with Black Inc. Books.
With thanks to our venue partner The Royal Oak Balmain.
