A New Book by Francesco Sisci: Thinking from the Tip of the Spear

How does China think about power, political order, war, and its place in the world?

Francesco Sisci’s new book, Thinking from the Tip of the Spear: Military Power, Political Order, and the Making of China’s Grand Strategy, approaches those questions through a sweeping historical and comparative lens.

One of the book’s central themes is illustrated in the image above:

modernity did not emerge from a single tradition.

Beginning with ancient Chinese thinkers and the Warring States period, Sisci follows the evolution of Chinese statecraft through imperial unification, China’s encounter with the modern West, Mao and the reform era, and the strategic challenges facing China under Xi Jinping today. Throughout the book, Chinese political and strategic traditions are placed in conversation with European and Western experiences. 

Ocean voyages, Chinese traditions of governance and political thought, and European institutions interacted across centuries, helping produce the interconnected world in which China and the West now have to understand one another.

That understanding matters. Differences in historical experience and strategic assumptions can easily become sources of misunderstanding—and, potentially, miscalculation.

The book is available online in full. For readers who have difficulty accessing or downloading files from Zenodo in their location, we are also providing a second direct-download option.

Direct PDF / alternative download: 

Zenodo: Read or download the book on Zenodo

Image: from Francesco Sisci, Thinking from the Tip of the Spear (2026).

The Zenodo record identifies the work as a 2026 book by Francesco Sisci, with Shawn D. Mathis as editor.