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Which M4 chip and model?

In the light of recent news, you might now be wondering whether you can afford to wait until next year in the hope that Apple then releases the M4 Mac of your dreams. To help guide you in your decision-making, this article explains what chip options are available in this month’s new M4 models, and how to choose between them.

CPU core types

Intel CPUs in modern Macs have several cores, all of them identical. Whether your Mac is running a background task like indexing for Spotlight, or running code for a time-critical user task, code is run across any of the available cores. In an Apple silicon chip like those in the M4 family, background tasks are normally constrained to efficiency (E) cores, leaving the performance (P) cores for your apps and other pressing user tasks. This brings significant energy economy for background tasks, and keeps your Mac more responsive to your demands.

Some tasks are normally constrained to run only on E cores. These include scheduled background tasks like Spotlight indexing, Time Machine backups, and some encoding of media. Game Mode is perhaps a more surprising E core user, as explained below.

Most user tasks are run preferentially on P cores, when they’re available. When there are more high-priority threads to be run than there are available P cores, then macOS will normally send them to be run on E cores instead. This also applies to threads running a Virtual Machine (VM) using lightweight virtualisation, whose threads will be preferentially scheduled on P cores when they’re available, even when code being run in the VM would normally be allocated to E cores.

macOS also controls the clock speed or frequency of cores. For background tasks running on E cores, their frequency is normally held relatively low, for best energy efficiency. When high-priority threads overspill onto E cores, they’re normally run at higher frequency, which is less energy-efficient but brings their performance closer to that of a P core. macOS goes to great lengths to schedule threads and control core frequencies to strike the best balance between energy efficiency and performance.

Unfortunately, it’s normally hard to see effects of frequency in apps like Activity Monitor. Its CPU % figures only show the percentage of cycles that are used for processing, and make no allowance for core frequency. It will therefore show a background thread running at low frequency but 100%, the same as a thread overspilt from P cores running at the maximum frequency of that E core. So when you see Spotlight indexing apparently taking 200% of CPU % on your Mac’s E cores, that might only be a small fraction of their maximum capacity if they were running at maximum frequency.

There are no differences between chips in the M4 family when it comes to each type of CPU core: each P core in a Base variant is the same as each in an M4 Pro or Max, with the same maximum frequency, and the same applies to E cores. macOS also allocates threads to different types of core using the same rules, and their frequencies are controlled the same as well. What differs between them is the number of each type of core, ranging from 4 P and 4 E in the 8-core variant of the Base M4, up to 12 P and 4 E in the 16-core variant of the M4 Max. Thus, their single-core benchmark results should be almost identical, although their multi-core results should vary according to the number of cores.

Game Mode

This mode is an exception to normal CPU and GPU core use, as it:

  • gives preferential access to the E cores,
  • gives highest priority access to the GPU,
  • uses low-latency Bluetooth modes for input controllers and audio output.

However, my previous testing didn’t demonstrate that apps running in Game Mode were given exclusive access to E cores. But for gamers, it now appears that the more E cores, the better.

GPU cores

These are also used for tasks other than graphics, such as some of the more demanding calculations required for Machine Learning and AI. However, experience so far with Writing Tools in Sequoia 15.1 is that macOS currently offloads their heavy lifting to be run off-device in one of Apple’s dedicated servers. Although having plenty of GPU cores might well be valuable for non-graphics purposes in the future, for now there seems little advantage for many.

Thunderbolt 5

M4 Pro and Max, but not Base variants, come equipped with Thunderbolt ports that not only support Thunderbolt 3 and 4, but 5, as well as USB4. Thunderbolt 5 should effectively double the speed of connected TB5 SSDs, but to see that benefit, you’ll need to buy a TB5 SSD. Not only are they more expensive than TB3/4 models, but at present I know of only one range that’s due to ship this year. There will also be other peripherals with TB5 support, including at least one dock and one hub, although neither is available yet. The only TB5 accessories that are already available are cables, and even they are expensive.

TB5 also brings increased video bandwidth and support for DisplayPort 2.1, although even the M4 Max can’t make full use of that. If you’re looking to drive a combination of high-res displays, consult Apple’s Tech Specs carefully, as they’re complicated.

Although TB5 will become increasingly important over the next few years, TB3/4 and USB4 are far from dead yet and are supported by all M4 models.

Which M4 chip?

The table below summarises key figures for each of the variants in the M4 family that have now been released. It’s likely that next year Apple will release an Ultra, consisting of two M4 Max chips joined in tandem, in case you feel the burning desire for 24 P and 8 E cores.

m4configs2

Models available next week featuring each M4 chip are shown with green rectangles at the right.

There are two variants of the Base M4, one with 4P + 4E and 8 GPU cores, the same as Base variants in M1 to M3 families. There’s also the more capable variant, for the first time with 4P + 6E, which promises to be a better all-rounder, and when in Game Mode. It also has an extra couple of GPU cores.

The M4 Pro also comes in two variants, this time differing in the number of P cores, 8 or 10, and GPU cores, 16 or 20. Those overlap with the M4 Max, with 10 or 12 P cores and 32 or 40 GPU cores. Thus the gap between M4 Pro and Max isn’t as great as in the M3, with the GPUs in the M4 Max being aimed more at those working with high-res video, for instance. For more general use, there’s little difference between the 14-core Pro and Max.

Memory and storage

Chips in the M4 family also determine the maximum memory and internal SSD capacity. Apple has at last eliminated base models with only 8 GB of memory, and all now start with at least 16 GB. Base M4 chips are limited to a maximum of 32 GB, while the M4 Pro can go up to 64 GB, and the 16-core Max up to 128 GB, although in its 14-core variant, the Max is only available with 36 GB (I’m very grateful to Thomas for pointing this out below).

Unfortunately, Apple hasn’t increased the minimum size of internal SSD, which remains at 256 GB for some base models. Smaller SSDs may be cheaper, but they are also likely to have shorter lives, as under heavy use their small number of blocks will be erased for reuse more frequently. That may shorten their life expectancy to much less than the normal period of up to 10 years, as was seen in some of the first M1 models. This is more likely to occur when swap space is regularly used for virtual memory. I for one would have preferred 512 GB as a starting point.

While Base M4 chips come with SSDs up to 2 TB in size, both Pro and Max can be supplied with internal SSDs of up to 8 TB.

I hope this proves useful in guiding your decision.

Gao Ertai: The desert flower that keeps blooming

“Some see in his critique of the Mao era parallels to today: the arbitrary rule of an aging leader, harsh treatment of dissent, and government programs that encourage people to inform on one another.” My profile of the octogenarian essayist Gao Ertai, who lived for years in the deserts of western China and now resides in Las Vegas.

Read the article  in The New Yorker online here.

Read the Chinese translation in the Boston Review of Books (波斯頓書評) here.

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肌肉記憶 詳細解析(中):改變基因?

上集說到,肌核假說只是肌肉記憶的一部份,但其他機制竟然可以改變基因?

前言

我們可以為了方便解釋而把肌肉記憶簡單區分為「肌肉」和「神經」兩個系統。因肌肉系統的記憶機制相對複雜,所以除了上集介紹的「肌核假說」外,本文還要來講解肌肉系統的另一個記憶機制:表徵遺傳學。

簡介

雖然我們現在知道「肌核假說」恐怕不是肌肉記憶的主要解釋,但別忘了,肌核本身對肌肉的成長還是至關重要,因為細胞核掌握了一個細胞的遺傳資訊,也會直接影響蛋白質的製造。

一個人幾乎所有的細胞(但不是全部)都擁有同一套基因,也就是父母留下的遺傳資訊。這些遺傳資訊以 DNA 的形式被保存在細胞核內,而細胞則會依照此基因藍圖來產生結構與功能。但既然資訊都是同一套,那為什麼神經、肌肉、脂肪等各式各樣的細胞,都會有不同的樣貌與功能呢?

這是因為,不同細胞對這一套基因組會有不同的表現。可以把它想成所有國家的廚師都擁有同一本超級世界食譜,但不同國家的廚師常做的料理會不一樣。例如台灣的廚師最常使用東方菜的食譜、有時會烹飪歐美料理、但幾乎是完全不會翻閱拉丁美洲傳統民族料理的食譜。因此,雖然每個廚師都擁有同一本超級食譜,但不同廚師製作出的料理類型則不盡相同。

雖然人體不會主動改變 DNA 序列(突變才會),但我們可以改變細胞讀取 DNA 的方法。這種「在不改變 DNA 序列的情況下,改變基因表現」的學科,即為「表徵遺傳學 epigenetics」,也是肌肉記憶的熱門候選機制。今天就要來帶大家了解,有什麼跟肌肉記憶有關的表徵遺傳學機制。

重點

  1. 訓練後,能促進增肌的基因會更容易被表現、而能抑制增肌的基因會被關靜音,也就是讓整體遺傳資訊更能幫助肌肥大。
  2. 就算停練而導致肌肉縮水,這些基因表現的改變仍會被留下來,使再度訓練時的增肌效果更佳。
  3. 基因的「甲基化」可以控制這段 DNA 被讀取的次數,若促進增肌的基因甲基化減少,則可以被讀取更多次,幫助增肌。
  4. miRNA(微 RNA)會防止對應的蛋白質被合成出來,若身體減少特定的 miRNA 生產,則可以增加特定的蛋白質合成,幫助增肌。

表徵遺傳學與健身的關係

不管是肌肉結構、訊息分子、還是生化反應的催化劑,許多都是由蛋白質構成的,而 DNA 就是蛋白質的建構藍圖。當我們讀取 DNA 的一段基因,經過轉錄與轉譯後,即能製造出特定蛋白質。也就是說,若我們能控制 DNA 的讀取,即能改變肌肉合成的反應。而能做到這件事的,就屬「表徵遺傳」的改變了。

當我們訓練後,促進增肌的基因會被頻繁表現出來、而抑制增肌的基因會被關靜音,使細胞能製造更多與增肌有關的蛋白質。此外,就算停練一段時間,這些基因表現的改變仍會被留存,代表再度回歸訓練時,我們的細胞能快速進入增肌準備,讓肌肥大更有效率。

以下,要來介紹細胞會做出哪些改變來操控表徵遺傳,並解釋目前學界有的研究證據。

先備知識:怎麼從 DNA 變成蛋白質?(已了解的可跳過)

想像一下:世界上所有的料理都被集結成一大本超級食譜,放在一個房間內。若想做一道菜,我們必須去翻閱超級食譜,但沒必要把成千上萬的其他美食作法也帶走,所以我們只要抄錄所需料理的部分。把抄錄本帶出房間後,就可以在廚房把這道菜烹飪出來。

回到 DNA 這邊:身上所有的基因都存在 DNA 之中,放在細胞核內。若想製造一種蛋白質,我們必須去讀取 DNA,但沒必要把所有基因的資訊也帶走,所以我們只需抄錄(a.k.a.「轉錄」)所需片段,把抄錄本(a.k.a.「RNA」)帶出細胞核後,就可以在細胞質裡面合成出蛋白質(a.k.a.「轉譯」)。

(圖一)從 DNA 到蛋白質

別忘了,這本超級食譜雖然每個細胞都有,但不同細胞會讀取的段落不同,所以才能產生不同的蛋白質來實現各式各樣的結構與功能。

基因的隱形斗篷:甲基化

當肌肉細胞受到重訓刺激時,肌核(肌肉細胞核)中的 DNA 會被改變讀取方法,使促進增肌的基因被更頻繁轉錄、而抑制增肌的基因則減少轉錄頻率。那細胞是如何改變 DNA 的讀取方法呢?答案是「甲基化」。

可以把「甲基」想成隱形斗篷,當我們把甲基安裝在一段基因上時,這段基因就會被靜音、忽略。若把甲基拿走,就會讓這段基因又開始顯現出來、並能被轉錄成 RNA。

不過,甲基化並不是非開即關,而是能控制不同的顯現程度,所以一段基因可能只是被減少轉錄頻率,而非被完全靜音。當一段基因被安裝上更多甲基而變得更隱形時,我們稱之為「高度甲基化」;相反地,若基因被移除甲基而增加表現頻率,則被稱為「低度甲基化」。

研究(如 12)發現:重訓之後,許多基因會低度甲基化,例如與 mTOR 相關、能提升肌肉蛋白合成的基因;一小部分的基因則會高度甲基化,如與細胞凋亡相關的基因。

這一系列的表徵遺傳改變使肌肉細胞的增肌效率大增。更重要的是,就算停練之後,這些改變仍能被保留下來(能保留多久仍有待確認),使再度訓練時擁有比初始階段更有效率的肌肥大。這就是「甲基化的肌肉記憶」。

半路殺出個程咬金:miRNA

DNA 會被轉錄成 RNA,然後 RNA 會被轉譯成蛋白質……其實沒那麼簡單。不是所有 DNA 片段最後都會成為蛋白質,只有轉錄成「信使 RNA(mRNA)」的才會。在其他 DNA 片段中,有一種會被轉錄成「微 RNA(miRNA)」,也就是表徵遺傳的另一個控制因素。

miRNA 就像半路殺出的程咬金,會在 mRNA 轉譯成蛋白質前阻止它,讓這個基因無法製造出蛋白質。也就是說,就算基因沒有被「甲基隱形斗篷」蓋布袋,它最後還是無法產出蛋白質。所以我們會希望減少跟增肌相關的 miRNA。

2020 的一篇研究發現,老鼠經過阻力訓練後,miRNA-1 的量會顯著減少。miRNA-1 是常見於骨骼肌中的一種 miRNA,它會抑制肌肉細胞的生長,因此若數量減少則能幫助增肌。

更重要的是,當老鼠經歷長達 6 個月的停練後,雖然肌肉大小和肌核數量都已打回原形,但 miRNA-1 的量仍然繼續低迷,代表肌肉的基因表現上是適合增肌的、也代表肌肉細胞能透過 miRNA-1 來保有先前訓練的「記憶」。

但還是無法完全歸因於它

雖然表徵遺傳學這個解釋相當合理且誘人,讓人不禁推論肌肉記憶就是它的功勞,但其實我們離那步還有些距離。

首先,我們並不知道在人身上,到底多久的重訓經歷可以使表徵遺傳產生變化、也不知道這個變化到底能維持多久。再者,我們並不知道不同訓練年資與程度,會如何影響表徵遺傳的差異。最後,我們也不知道表徵遺傳的差異究竟會多劇烈地影響增肌。

即使如此,在學界中表徵遺傳學仍然是肌肉記憶的一大巨星,也相信未來更多的相關研究可以帶我們更加認識這個機制。

總結

肌肉細胞可透過表徵遺傳的改變,去影響基因的表現方式,進而影響增肌的效果,而其中較明顯的機制是透過「甲基化」和「miRNA」去做改變的。停練後,促進增肌的表徵遺傳並不會馬上消失,而是能繼續維持,幫助我們回歸訓練時能快速回到原本的程度,這就是肌肉記憶的表徵遺傳學假說。

至此,我們介紹了兩種肌肉記憶的肌肉系統機制:曾經風光的「肌核假說」和具有無限潛力但仍充滿未知數的「表徵遺傳學假說」。但重訓表現的快速恢復,除了肌肉本身的成長外,也有神經系統的貢獻。本系列的最後一篇文章,會再帶大家了解肌肉記憶的神經系統機制。

China Unofficial Archives launch

After months of work, on Dec. 13 we launched the China Unofficial Archives, a repository of hundreds of underground periodicals, books, and movies. 

The site is a project that I began to think about when I was working on Sparks, my book on counter-history in China. One key point is that the digital revolution has made it easier than ever for people inside an authoritarian state like China’s to share information by basic technologies, such as PDFs or digital films. And yet much of the information sharing is ad hoc. A person may get an email with a PDF book attached on, say, the Cultural Revolution, but not realize what else has been published or filmed on this topic. Or they might like the author but might not have an easy way to access that person’s works. An online archive, I thought, could help fill this gap.

After incorporating the archive as a non-profit over the summer, I secured funding from a charity, hired a web designer and had invaluable help from people such as the independent journalist Jiang Xue (who also features in Sparks). 

We “launched” via an online event sponsored by Westminister University’s China Centre. I was joined by Gerda Wielander, who has done much research on history and state narratives in China, and Shao Jiang, a London-based scholar who advises the archive. The event will eventually be posted to YouTube. 

For a description of what the site aspires to be, you can see its “About” page here. I also wrote the first in what I hope will be a series of “Curators Notes” by me and various people involved in curating the site. 

As I mention in the note, this is a work in progress. We’ve already received very useful feedback on how to improve it and are also in the middle of uploading hundreds of new movies and other files. We currently have about 850 items in the archive but need to double it–and fill in many holes (also outlined in my note)–before it will really take shape. 

Stay tuned…

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Best books of 2023

With 2023  almost over, five important publications have included Sparks on their “best of 2023” lists, including The New Yorker, The Economist, The Financial Times, The New Statesman, and The Tablet

 

The New Yorker

“With firm but never dogmatic moral conviction, Johnson pays tribute to the writers, the scholars, the poets, and the filmmakers who found the courage to challenge Communist Party propaganda. These dissenters looked beyond the official lies about the past and the present, and decided to document the truth about forbidden topics, including Mao Zedong’s campaigns to massacre putative class enemies. They often paid for their candor with long prison terms, torture, or death. Their conclusions—presented in homemade videos, mimeographed sheets, and underground journals—didn’t reach a wide audience when they appeared. And yet, as Johnson makes clear in his superb, stylishly written book, the value of their legacy is incalculable.”

 

The Economist

“A Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist describes the valiant e!orts of China’s “underground historians”, a motley and persistent group of academics, artists, film-makers and journalists attempting to correct the sanitised official record and provide truthful accounts of history. A rare insight into the extraordinary risks that some Chinese take to illuminate the darkest corners of communism.”

 

 

The FT

“‘Who controls the past, controls the future,’ wrote George Orwell. This is a fascinating and important story of dissident historians in China, who are challenging the Communist party’s authorised version of history.”

 

 

 

 

The New Statesman

“In a year of unrelentingly bleak news, I’ve chosen Sparks  (Allen Lane), Ian Johnson’s evocative study of China’s underground historians documents both the relentless crackdown on civil society and intellectual freedom under Xi Jinping, and the quiet courage of those who refuse to be crushed. Drawing their inspiration from earlier acts of resistance that appeared hopeless in their own times, these independent scholars, filmmakers, and journalists have come to view their work as time capsules, determined to preserve an accurate record of the country’s past for future generations. ‘They want future Chinese to know,’ Johnson writes, ‘that in the 2020s, when things had never been darker…. Not everyone had given in.'”

 

The Tablet

“Controlling the interpretation of what has happened in China since the Communist revolution is an integral part of President Xi Jinping’s ever-tightening grip on his vast country. In Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future (Allen Lane, £25; Tablet price £22.50), Ian Johnson charts the brave attempts of individuals, the ‘underground’ historians, to challenge the party line and reveal the brutal arbitrariness which has marked its rule from the beginning.”

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SPARKS Tour Dates

We’re building out a tour this September, October, and November to talk about my new book  Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future.

I’ll start out on the launch date, Sept. 26, at McNally Jackson in New York City, followed the next day with a talk at the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge, MA. Then back to NY for a Council on Foreign Relations talk, down to Washington DC for talks at Georgetown and Politics & Prose, followed by a trip to the U.K., and then the West Coast of the United States.

Next year: the Association for Asian Studies meeting in Seattle (where I’ve organized a panel on counter-history in China), Stanford, SMU in Dallas, and more… For some of the details, please visit my Sparks-tour page here

 

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Coming sept 2023: Sparks

Coming 26 September 2023: Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future–my first book in six years, a chronicle of Chinese people inside China today who are challenging the Communist Party on its most sensitive topic, its control of history. 

Summary

From the back cover:

A documentary filmmaker who spent years uncovering a Mao-era death camp; an independent journalist who gave voice to the millions who suffered through draconian Covid lockdowns; a samizdat magazine publisher who dodges the secret police: these are some of the people who make up Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future, a vital account of how some of China’s most important writers, filmmakers, and artists have overcome crackdowns and censorship to challenge the Chinese Communist Party on its most sacred ground–its monopoly on history. 

Why history? The past is a battleground in many countries, but in China it is crucial to political power. In traditional China, dynasties rewrote history to justify their rule by proving that their predecessors were unworthy. Marxism gave this a modern gloss, describing history as an unstoppable force heading toward Communism’s triumph. The Communist Party builds on these ideas to whitewash its misdeeds and justify its continued hold on power. Indeed, one of Xi Jinping’s signature policies is the control of history, which he equates with the party’s very survival.

But in recent years, critical thinkers from across China have begun to challenge this state-led disremembering. Using digital technologies to bypass China’s ubiquitous surveillance state, their samizdat journals, underground films, and guerilla media posts document a persistent pattern of disasters: from famines and purges of years past to ethnic clashes and virus outbreaks of the present.

Based on ten years of on-the-ground investigations and interviews, Sparks challenges stereotypes of a China where the state has quashed all free thought, revealing instead a land engaged in of one of humanity’s great struggles of memory against forgetting–a battle that will shape the China that emerges in the mid-21st century.

 

Advance Praise

    For more than three decades, Ian Johnson has conducted some of the most important grassroots research of any foreign journalist in China. With Sparks, he turns his attention to history—not the sanctioned, censored, and selective history promoted by the Communist Party, but the independent histories that are being written and filmed by brave individuals across the country. This book is a powerful reminder of how China’s future depends on who controls the past.

            —Peter Hessler, MacArthur grantee, National Book Award Winning author of Rivertown, Oracle Bones, and Strange Stones.      

 

   An indelible feat of reporting and an urgent read, Ian Johnson’s Sparks is alive with the voices of the countless Chinese who fiercely, improbably, refuse to let their histories be forgotten. It’s a privilege to read books like these. 

          —Te-Ping Chen, author of Land of Big Numbers, and Wall Street Journal national correspondent.

 

     China’s most famous modern writer Lu Xun predicted that “as long as there shall be stones, the seeds of fire will not die.” In Sparks Ian Johnson introduces us to a new generation of unofficial historians — modern-day “seeds of fire.” Their work will survive the Xi Jinping era, both to shed light on the past and to illuminate China’s better future.

          — Geremie R. Barmé, editor, China Heritage.

 

     Ian Johnson’s Sparks was a revelation: this historian from overseas spent years penetrating the world of underground Chinese historians, becoming in his own right a recorder of pioneers such as Hu Jie, Ai Xiaoming, and Jiang Xue, who use text and video to record China’s lost history.

            —Liao Yiwu, author of The Corpse Walker, God is Red, For a Song and a Hundred Songs, and recipient of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade.

 

     Sparks tells the stories of underground historians who are determined to write down China’s hidden histories of famines, political campaigns, massacres, and virus outbreaks. These stories show why Xi Jinping wants to control history–because memories like these are sparks of light in a heavy darkness.

            —Li Yuan, New York Times columnist and host of the Bumingbai podcast.

 

     In the long years of Chinese people’s pursuit of justice and equality, preserving historical truth has always been a fierce but invisible battle. As Ian Johnson’s Sparks shows, today’s fighters for the truth are backed by vast armies—the seen and unseen, the living and the dead—who together are prying open the lies on which totalitarianism is built.

          —Cui Weiping, Beijing Film Academy professor, translator of Vaclav Havel into Chinese.

 

        Ian Johnson has presented a powerful narrative of how the human spirit has survived the cruel repression of Maoist totalitarianism and is still doing the same against Xi Jinping’s determined efforts to impose a new form of digital totalitarianism. In telling the individual stories of Chinese citizens who choose to defend freedom and dignity, Johnson has also provided a powerful illustration of how Xi’s repressive regime works.  A must read for anyone interested in the Chinese and China.

            —Steve Tsang, historian of Hong Kong, director of the China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London.

 

   This is a necessary book charged with historical urgency. The sparks, left by the eponymous underground magazine suppressed in the 1950s, are preserved here and ready to burst into a  firestorm.”

            —Ha Jin, author of the National Book Award-winning novel Waiting

 

     This compelling and highly enjoyable book will greatly enhance the general reader’s understanding of the subtle counter-currents of resistance at work in Chinese society below the smooth surface of control and compliance. In fifteen chapters and a conclusion, the author provides a comprehensive and detailed picture of what he calls “underground history” and its practitioners in mainland China—amateur or one might say guerilla historians who devote considerable efforts to reconstructing the past through independent inquiry, bypassing and challenging state-condoned narratives of the past.

        —Sebastian Veg, author of Minjian: The Rise of China’s Grassroots Intellectuals, professor of history at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Paris. 

Publication Rights and Editions

This book will come out in the United States and Canada via Oxford University Press, and via Penguin (Allen Lane) for other English-language rights areas, including the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and Asia. 

Foreign rights have also been sold for Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.

Some notes on the covers

The US and Canada cover (at the top of this post) was made by Yang Kim, a Brooklyn-based book designer who works for Crown (Random House). She used a collage of images inside a torch, which she took from an image used in a 1960 student journal, Spark, which was the inspiration for my book title. Thanks Yang for such a brilliant job!

The designers for Allen Lane in London opted to use an Ai Weiwei papercut called “River Crabs.” Ai uses the traditional art form of paper cutting and combines it with topical issues, such as pollution, protests, and the state’s demolition of private property. River Crabs are a form of Internet slang for censorship and protests against it.

Sparks

Photos

The book contains more than thirty photos. Some of them are historical, such as images of the students who founded the original journal. Many of these people ended up in labor camps for years and some were executed. Thanks to several Chinese historians, such as Song Yongyi and the documentary filmmaker Hu Jie for sending me these valuable historical prints. These images survived the maelstrom and thanks to digital technologies are now part of China’s collective memory–a key theme of this book.

Four students from Lanzhou University exiled to the city of Tianshui, standing in front of the party offices. They would publish the journal Spark, which has become a touchstone in the battle for China's history.
The first page of the 1960 journal Spark, founded by Lanzhou University students exiled to western China during the Anti-Rightist Campaign. They witnessed the Great Famine and wrote trenchant essays on China's political system that still echo today.

Others photos in the book were taken by the Singaporean artist and former Magnum photographer Sim Chi Yin, who accompanied me on some of the interviews. Chi Yin did beautiful landscapes that caught the theme of repressed and recovered memories that lie at the heart of this book. 

Widow's Bridge, Daoxian, where many were beaten and tossed into the river in August 1967.

Chi Yin also took portraits of key people involved in the piece, especially the journalist Jiang Xue and the documentary filmmaker Ai Xiaoming. 

Chinese writer Jiang Xue, whose essays were among the most popular accounts of China's draconian zero-Covid policy.
Chinese underground filmmaker and feminist scholar Ai Xiaoming in her home in Wuhan.

The book also contains reproductions of artworks that try to counter the “tyranny of the archive”–that reality is more than state-controlled archives can ever show us. 

The artist and filmmaker Hu Jie's depiction of the poet Lin Zhao, forced to wear a "monkey mask" to prevent her from speaking in the days before her execution. Hu's work is an effort to fill in the archives' voids, allowing us to feel the past more viscerally than is possible with words.

Maps

Once again I was fortunate enough to work with the mapmaker Angela Hessler, who put together the beautiful map that you can see below, which reflects a key theme in the book–the landscape of memory. The logo of the magazine Spark is reproduced in the lower left-hand corner, while the logo of the contemporary journal Remembrance is in the lower right. The little torches indicate key locations mentioned in the book. Thanks Angela!

Purchase

Last but not least….the book is available now for preorder from OUP, Penguin, Amazon, Barnes, and any indy bookstore that you frequent.

I’d appreciate any pre-orders as it helps improve how the book is marketed, both in the bookstore and online. And afterwards, any reviews or feedback to the bookseller would be great–it helps keep the book in stock and in print. 

The post Coming sept 2023: Sparks appeared first on Ian Johnson.

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