Peter Hitchens’ blog (The Mail Online) has a book review on The Death Of Mao, which, apart from its eponymous subject, illuminates the little known but disastrous Tangshan earthquake, which happened in the same year as Mao’s death (1976). Hitchens takes the opportunity to lament our ignorance of Chinese history generally, ancient and modern, and slips in a mention of my favourite Flashman novel: Flashman and the Dragon which is praised as thoughtful, contextual and magnificent (if bawdy).