it isn't often that I say "wow, the Soviet Union [I grew up in] was not as bad as this." The world Tahir tells us about, the world he lived in for many decades, and fled to give his children a better future, is one which combines the worst of the Stalinist purges of the 1930s and the Nazi Holocaust, but turned up to 14 with the use of modern surveillance technology.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking stories in Tahir's book are about the choices family members and friends have to make to protect themselves from the consequences of his decision to seek asylum in the United States. Even his father, mother and brother are forced to denounce him after a single phone call from his US phone number.

What the Chinese state is doing to Tahir and his people absolutely meets the definition of genocide.

This book isn't just mandatory to understand the crisis China has created for the Uyghur people, but is also keen commentary on the importance of privacy, the destructive power of corruption in a totalitarian regime, the continued importance that American democracy, flawed as it may be, continues to exist.