19 February 2006

Advice for Prof. Reynolds

Glenn Reynolds soon to be release book An Army of Davids has received good press and strong pre-orders at Amazon.

He doesn't need my advice regarding this book, but when he commented in this post

Via Hugh Hewitt, who observes "The Party ought to require every member read An Army of Davids. (Who's got the rights in the PRC Glenn?)". Why limit it to Party members? I think that everyone in China should read it!


My reaction is that he should really consider offering a Chinese Translation freely available over the internet (and I'm sure the decision isn't his alone to make, plus there's the possibility of translations of the translation floating about devaluing this book elsewhere). Make it available in multiple formats, get servers to mirror it around the globe, and make sure that however it is offered, the authorities will have trouble preventing access within the borders of the PRC. I'm sure the amount of money lost would pale in comparison to the possibility of being a 'founding father' of sort for a better freer China. I'll read the book when it's out here, but I'm guessing from the descriptions and early reviews that this book really could effect change should it spread throughout a society dealing with continuing Authoritarianism.

Again there could be legal barriers to doing this, among other considerations, but it's a suggestion, and it might even be a thought that has already crossed his mind, so I'm just putting this out there so that he knows what others think (even influential bloggers like myself with dozens of daily readers).


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