Stephen Platt is one of the exciting young Sinologists emerging from the US. These are 2 of his most recent books. Both, in my view,…
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Tag: Chinese History (Books)
The Tang China & Japan
The record of a pilgrimage to China in search of the law. This is a 2020 reprint of a translation originally published in 1955. It…
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The Adventures of Wu: The Life Cycle of a Peking Man
The Adventures of Wu. This is a book that I have pleasure dipping into once every Chinese festival approaches. In 2021 we celebrate the Mid-Autumn…
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China and the West
An excellent book slightly marred by an absence of endnotes. It’s a great pity as this really is a wonderfully narrated tale of a friendship…
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Liu Hung-Chang and China’s Early Modernization
“Opportunity for high office is a matter of fate” -Tseng Kuo Fan advising Li Hung Chang. Tseng was instrumental in crushing the Taiping Rebellion. He…
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Liu Hung-Chang and China’s Early Modernization
“Opportunity for high office is a matter of fate” -Tseng Kuo Fan advising Li Hung Chang. (Page 21) Li was a son of a Chin-Shih…
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Introduction to Western specialists on China’s history (Part 3)
Jonathan Spence is the doyen. Formerly a Brit, now an American, his book output on China is prolific. One of his best is Treason by…
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Introduction to Western specialists on China’s history (Part 2)
Jacques Gernet is a French sinophile. Long before the Americans, he had written highly acclaimed books on China’s history. Buddhism in Chinese Society was written…
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Introduction to Western specialists on China’s history (Part 1)
Joseph W Esherick is an expert on Chinese History. In Ancestral Leaves, he gives us a human history of China from the 14th century to…
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Mao: The Man Who Made China
This is arguably the best one-volume biography on Mao. Revised in 2017, Philip Short has written a very readable book backed up by tremendous research.…
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