Sparks tells the story of how underground writers, filmmakers, and journalists have been able to bypass China's legendary surveillance state to reveal the truth of Communist Party rule: from famines and purges of years past to ethnic clashes and virus outbreaks of the present. Ian Johnson spent nearly a decade on the ground with these outlaw historians, tracing their history back to the origins of the Communist Party last century and their new, nationwide presence in today's China. Written with verve and humanity, Sparks is a testimony to the power of memory over forgetting.