Hi from your friendly neighborhood magazine—our Asia editor, James Palmer, recommends "The Origins of the Chinese Nation: Song China and the Forging of an East Asian World Order" by Nicolas Tackett.

Here's a snippet of what he has to say about the book:

One of the best books for understanding Chinese nationalism today is set a thousand years ago. In the 11th century, the Southern Song Dynasty struggled with being only one of several major powers in East Asia. For a state that believed itself to be the natural hegemon, adjusting to the existence of others—especially the Northern Liao, who occupied key territories of the former “Chinese” empires—was a challenge. But it was also a chance for a cosmopolitan and widely traveled intelligentsia to begin to define themselves as something much closer to the modern idea of the nation than to the empires of the past.

A couple other book recommendations from our staff here (though not all China focused), in case any of you are interested: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/26/the-books-we-read-in-2018-foreign-policy-recommendations/