China In The Years Before Mao, Where They Were Slingin’ The Jokes Left And Right

“China in the early 20th century, my book’s focus,” says historian Christopher Rea (whose book, says the Times, is “hilarious”), “was, to put it mildly, a rough and tumble place. But it fostered a whole industry of mirth populated with cultural figures from hack jokesters to respectable writers slumming it as humorists.”