Showing titles in China

Ying Zheng was born to rule the world, claiming descent from gods, crowned king while still a child. He was the product of a heartless, brutal regime devoted to domination, groomed from an early age to become the First Emperor of China after a century of scheming by his ancestors.

Some of the cruelest deeds of Japan's war in Asia did not occur on the battlefield, but in quiet, antiseptic medical wards in obscure parts of China. Far from front lines and prying eyes, Japanese doctors and their assistants subjected human guinea pigs to gruesome medical experiments in the name of science and Japan's wartime chemical and biological warfare research. Author Hal Gold draws upon a wealth of sources to construct a portrait of the Imperial Japanese Army's most notorious medical unit, giving an overview of its history and detailing its most shocking activities.

China is the oldest living civilisation on earth, but its history is still surprisingly little known in the wider world. Michael Wood's sparkling narrative, which mingles the grand sweep with local and personal stories, woven together with the author’s own travel journals, is an enthralling account of China’s 4000-year-old tradition, taking in life stationed on the Great Wall or inside the Forbidden City.

Over the past four decades, China's remarkable transformation has garnered admiration but also sparked concern. George Magnus draws on his intimate knowledge of this dynamic nation to uncover the origins of its ascent and show why the economic traps it faces at home and the political challenges it faces abroad pose a serious threat to its continued rise. 

When Amitav Ghosh began the research for his monumental cycle of novels, The Ibis Trilogy, ten years ago, he was startled to find how the lives of the 19th century sailors and soldiers he wrote of were dictated not only by the currents of the Indian Ocean, but also by the precious commodity carried in enormous quantities on those currents: opium. Most surprising at all, however, was the discovery that his own identity and family history was swept up in the story. Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, memoir and an essay in history, drawing on decades of archival research.

1839. Trade is the stalwart of the British Empire. China threatens Britain's Opium trade. Britain and China go to war. When Britain sent troops to compel the Chinese to accept imports of opium, they opened what is argued to be one of the most disgraceful chapters in the history of the Empire. How did the situation arise? How did opium exports become so crucial to the British economy? How did the British come to be as addicted to opium revenue as the Chinese were to the drug itself?Brian Inglis gives the answers to these and other questions in this meticulously researched study.

China and Japan have cultural and political connections that stretch back 1,500 years. But today, their relationship is strained. China's military buildup deeply worries Japan, while Japan's brutal occupation of China in World War II remains an open wound. In recent years, less than 10 percent of each population had positive feelings toward the other, and both countries insist that the other side must deal openly with its history before relations can improve. Ezra Vogel's China and Japan examines key turning points in Sino-Japanese history.

Between 1958 and 1962, 45 million Chinese people were worked, starved or beaten to death. Mao Zedong threw his country into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up with and overtake the West in less than fifteen years. It led to one of the greatest catastrophes the world has ever known. Dikotter's extraordinary research within Chinese archives brings together for the first time what happened in the corridors of power with the everyday experiences of ordinary people, giving voice to the dead and disenfranchised.

Once described by Mao Zedong as a "needle inside a ball of cotton", Deng was the pragmatic yet disciplined driving force behind China's radical transformation in the late 20th century. He confronted the damage wrought by the Cultural Revolution, dissolved Mao's cult of personality, and loosened the policies that had stunted China's growth. Obsessed with modernization, Deng opened trade relations with the West, which lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. Yet he also answered to his authoritarian roots, most notably when he ordered the crackdown in 1989 at Tiananmen Square.

China's Civilian Army charts China's transformation from an isolated and impoverished communist state to a global superpower from the perspective of those on the front line: China's diplomats. They give a rare perspective on the greatest geopolitical drama of the last half century.

Defending Heaven brings together, for the first time in one volume, a complete history of the Jin, Song, and Ming dynasties' wars fought against the Mongols. Lasting nearly two centuries, these wars, fought to defend Chinese civilization against a brutal and unrelenting foe, pitted personal heroics against the inexorable Mongol war machine and involved every part of the Chinese state.

By the mid-fourteenth century, the world empire founded by Genghis Khan was in crisis. The Mongol Ilkhanate had ended in Iran and Iraq, China's Mongol rulers were threatened by the native Ming, and the Golden Horde and the Central Asian Mongols were prey to internal discord. Into this void moved the warlord Tamerlane, the last major conqueror to emerge from Inner Asia.

When New York Times correspondent Edward Wong arrived in Beijing in 2008, he had a hopeful view of a coming Chinese century. Nearly sixty years earlier, his father held a similarly optimistic vision - and joined the People's Liberation Army to further Mao's revolution. But both men were forced to confront the hard realities of Communist Party rule. Drawing on family interviews and his reporting, Edward Wong unveils the continuous inner history of China under Xi Jinping and Mao. But the parallel journeys of father and son also illustrate startling shifts over the decades.

According to even the most conservative estimates, China will overtake the United States as the world's largest economy by 2027 and will ascend to the position of world economic leader by 2050. But the full repercussions of China's ascendancy-for itself and the rest of the globe-have been surprisingly little explained or understood.

China has become deeply integrated into the world economy. Yet, gradual marketization has facilitated the country's rise without leading to its wholesale assimilation to global neoliberalism. This book uncovers the fierce contest about economic reforms that shaped China's path.

China: 1200 AD. Guo Jing has confronted Apothecary Huang, his sweetheart Lotus' father, on Peach Blossom Island, and bested the villainous Gallant Ouyang in three trials to win her hand in marriage. But now, along with his sworn brother, Zhou Botong of the Quanzhen Sect, and his shifu, Count Seven Hong, chief of the Beggar Clan, he has walked into a trap. Tricked by Huang into boarding an unseaworthy barge, they will surely drown unless Lotus - who has overheard her father's plans - can find a way to save them.

For decades, the West has dismissed Maoism as an outdated historical and political phenomenon. Since the 1980s, China seems to have abandoned the utopian turmoil of Mao’s revolution in favour of authoritarian capitalism. But Mao and his ideas remain central to the People’s Republic and the legitimacy of its Communist government. With disagreements and conflicts between China and the West on the rise, the need to understand the political legacy of Mao is urgent and growing.

An exciting, hugely revealing account of China’s burgeoning presence in Africa - a developing empire already shaping, and reshaping, the future of millions of people. A prizewinning foreign correspondent and former New York Times bureau chief in Shanghai and in West and Central Africa, Howard French is uniquely positioned to tell the story of China in Africa. Through meticulous on-the-ground reporting, French crafts a layered investigation of astonishing depth and breadth.

Based on his observations over three decades, Henry Kamm, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Southeast Asia correspondent, unravels the complexities of Cambodia. Kamm's invaluable document - a factual and personal account of its troubled history - gives the Western listener the first clear understanding of this magic land's past and present.

In his retelling of a Chinese history stretching back 5,000 years, author and China-expert Jonathan Clements focuses on the human stories which led to the powerful transformations in Chinese society - from the unification of China under its first emperor, Qinshi Huangdi, to the Mongol invasion under Genghis Khan and the consolidation of Communist rule under Mao Zedong. Clements even brings listeners through to the present day, outlining China's economic renaissance under Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping.