Lincoln Financial Professor of Political Science George Xuezhi Guo’s book on Xi Jinping has been recognized by a scholar as one of the best books in publication to learn more about the Chinese president.

Olivia Cheung, a research fellow at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, lifted up George’s 2021 book, The Politics of the Core Leader in China: Culture, Institution, Legitimacy, and Power, on the website Five Books.

Five Books is a well-regarded, reliable source for book recommendations. The website interviews experts about the best books in their fields of expertise to help readers gain valuable insights and guidance.

George was born and raised in China. He was pursuing his master’s and doctoral work in West Germany in 1989 when the protests in Tiananmen Square unfolded. After the bloody ending, George moved to the United States and eventually made his way to Guilford.

George’s book focuses on the role of the party chief and their collective leadership through the ages in China, from Mao Zedong to Xi.

“If you have collective leadership, it is not because Deng Xiaoping put in those norms, and people abide by those norms because they don’t want the atrocities of the Mao era to recur and you have collective leadership as a party consensus,” Olivia writes.

“(Guo) challenges that view. He says that you have collective leadership because the person who has the title of the top party leader failed to consolidate power successfully, so that you have different factions competing with each other.”