'Vigil' Book Launch at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs

The protests that have dominated Hong Kong this year represent the most consequential unresolved political situation in the world today. We can’t know yet exactly what the outcome in Hong Kong will be, but it clearly will represent the end of the dream of China’s tolerating a different kind of political order in Hong Kong. We are getting a clear signal from the world’s rising power that it has no patience with supposedly universal democratic norms. Jeffrey Wasserstrom, an expert on China, has been a regular visitor to Hong Kong for decades and an eyewitness to many of its dramatic events. Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink, his new book, represents a rare example of deep historical, cultural, and political context produced on deadline about a major ongoing news event. Drawing on a rich store of knowledge and wisdom, and writing with literary power as well as analytic rigor, Wasserstrom makes us understand the deep roots and the broad significance of the tragedy we see unfolding day by day in Hong Kong.

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This book is published with support from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF)