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Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 17, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Can anyone recommend a good history book on the Chinese communist revolution? I am specifically interested in how they defeated the guomintang and less so in the cultural revolution.

Ideally this would be a politically neutral book (I don't like it when the author feels it's necessary to tell me someone is good or bad, I can decide for myself)

I read origins of the Chinese Revolution by Lucien Bianco a few years ago and I was looking to find something more modern and preferably with the Pinyin spellings of names as they are easier for me to pronounce in my head.

The closest thing I've read is The Tragedy of Liberation by Frank Dikötter, but it focuses more on the period immediately after 1949 than the Chinese Civil War itself.