God’s Chinese Son – Jonathan D. Spence - The Taiping
Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan – largest uprising in human history 1845-64,
Confucian student ascends to heaven and returns convinced he’s Jesus brother.
Translated the gospel to Chinese, rewriting it to add stories that reflected his
revelations. Proceeds to attack Manchu rulers of china starting a rebellion /
civil war that would kill 20 million .
River Town - Two Years on the Yangtze
-- Peter Hessler -- The author spends 2 years in the mid-90's teaching English
in a town set to be flooded by the Yangtze - 3 Gorges Dam. Well-written, full of
anecdotes, humor and keen cultural observation.
China Wakes
-The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power
- Nicholas D. Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn -- The authors were newspaper
reporters in Beijing during the late 1980's, including the Tiananmen massacre.
Their descriptions are one of the best preparations for a trip to China, even at
this remove. They alternate writing chapters, each concentrating on
particular aspects of Chinese society. They document Chinas's swing from a left
wing, Maoist-Trotskyite Communist totalitarian, isolationist state to a right wing authoritarian
state trying to merge into a global economy. The goals of world
revolution, worker's control have been replaced with state capitalism, and
limited forms of entrepreneurial capitalism, without significant political
liberty. Whether the next generations of China's leaders can maintain this
precarious position remains to be seen.
Search for Modern China - Jonathan Spence -
Excellent survey history of China. Like China Wakes, he shows how much
of modern history can best be understood in terms of China's past.
Fiction:
When We Were Orphans
Kazuo Ishiguro - set in the 1920's in revolutionary
Shanghai. One of his bestNeal Stephenson - The Diamond Age
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