Download or read book The Life and Times of General China written by Myles Osborne and published by . This book was released on 2014-10-14 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book's central focus is General China, the most important but controversial leader of the notorious Mau Mau rebellion that exploded in Kenya colony during the 1950s. We read the story through the lens of China, his memoirs - now published for the first time outside of Kenya -and archival sources, to understand important themes in African history: how Africans fought for the end of colonial rule, and the complex histories of nationalist movements; how Britain tried to handle such resistance; the wider moment of decolonisation on the world stage; and how past conflicts still have contemporary relevance.
Download or read book A Village with My Name written by Scott Tong and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-11-17 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An “immensely readable” journey through modern Chinese history told through the experiences of the author’s extended family (Christian Science Monitor). When journalist Scott Tong moved to Shanghai, his assignment was to start the first full-time China bureau for “Marketplace,” the daily business and economics program on public radio stations across the US. But for Tong the move became much more: an opportunity to reconnect with members of his extended family who’d remained there after his parents fled the communists six decades prior. Uncovering their stories gave him a new way to understand modern China’s defining moments and its long, interrupted quest to go global. A Village with My Name offers a unique perspective on China’s transitions through the eyes of regular people who witnessed such epochal events as the toppling of the Qing monarchy, Japan’s occupation during WWII, exile of political prisoners to forced labor camps, mass death and famine during the Great Leap Forward, market reforms under Deng Xiaoping, and the dawn of the One Child Policy. Tong focuses on five members of his family, who each offer a specific window on a changing country: a rare American-educated girl born in the closing days of the Qing Dynasty, a pioneer exchange student, a toddler abandoned in wartime who later rides the wave of China’s global export boom, a young professional climbing the ladder at a multinational company, and an orphan (the author’s daughter) adopted in the middle of a baby-selling scandal fueled by foreign money. Through their stories, Tong shows us China anew, visiting former prison labor camps on the Tibetan plateau and rural outposts along the Yangtze, exploring the Shanghai of the 1930s, and touring factories across the mainland—providing a compelling and deeply personal take on how China became what it is today. “Vivid and readable . . . The book’s focus on ordinary people makes it refreshingly accessible.” —Financial Times “Tong tells his story with humor, a little snark, [and] lots of love . . . Highly recommended, especially for those interested in Chinese history and family journeys.” —Library Journal (starred review)
Download or read book The Search for Modern China written by Jonathan D. Spence and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1990 with total page 1054 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this widely acclaimed history of modern China, Jonathan Spence achieves a fine blend of narrative richness and efficiency. The Search for Modern China offers a matchless introduction to China's history.
Download or read book Wild Swans written by Jung Chang and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-06-20 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history—a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than ten million copies sold around the world, now with a new introduction from the author. An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members: her grandmother, a warlord’s concubine; her mother’s struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents’ experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a “barefoot doctor,” a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving—and ultimately uplifting—detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history.
Download or read book Wealth and Power written by Orville Schell and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two leading experts on China evaluate its rise throughout the past one hundred fifty years, sharing portraits of key intellectual and political leaders to explain how China transformed from a country under foreign assault to a world giant.
Download or read book China in Ten Words written by Yu Hua and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2012-08-21 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of China’s most acclaimed writers: a unique, intimate look at the Chinese experience over the last several decades. Framed by ten phrases common in the Chinese vernacular, China in Ten Words uses personal stories and astute analysis to reveal as never before the world’s most populous yet oft-misunderstood nation. In "Disparity," for example, Yu Hua illustrates the expanding gaps that separate citizens of the country. In "Copycat," he depicts the escalating trend of piracy and imitation as a creative new form of revolutionary action. And in "Bamboozle," he describes the increasingly brazen practices of trickery, fraud, and chicanery that are, he suggests, becoming a way of life at every level of society. Witty, insightful, and courageous, this is a refreshingly candid vision of the "Chinese miracle" and all of its consequences.
Download or read book When China Ruled the Seas written by Louise Levathes and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-12-02 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One hundred years before Columbus and his fellow Europeans began their voyages of discovery, fleets of giant junks commanded by the eunuch admiral Zheng He and filled with the empire’s finest porcelains, lacquerware, and silk ventured to the world’s “four corners.” Seven epic expeditions brought China’s treasure ships across the China Seas and Indian Ocean, from Japan to the spice island of Indonesia and the Malabar Coast of India, on to the rich ports of the Persian Gulf and down the East African coast, to China’s “El Dorado,” and perhaps even to Australia, three hundred years before Captain Cook’s landing. It was a time of exploration and expansion, but it ended in a retrenchment so complete that less than a century later, it was a crime to go to sea in a multimasted ship. In When China Ruled the Seas, Louise Levathes takes a fascinating and unprecedented look at this dynamic period in China’s enigmatic history, focusing on the country’s rise as a naval power that briefly brought half the world under its nominal authority. Drawing on eyewitness accounts, official Ming histories, and African, Arab, and Indian sources, many translated for the first time, Levathes brings readers inside China’s most illustrious scientific and technological era. She sheds new light on the historical and cultural context in which this great civilization thrived, as well as the perception of China by other contemporary cultures. Beautifully illustrated and engagingly written, When China Ruled the Seas is the fullest picture yet of the early Ming dynasty—the last flowering of Chinese culture before the Manchu invasion.
Download or read book The Generalissimo written by Jay Taylor and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-15 with total page 737 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most momentous stories of the last century is China’s rise from a self-satisfied, anti-modern, decaying society into a global power that promises to one day rival the United States. Chiang Kai-shek, an autocratic, larger-than-life figure, dominates this story. A modernist as well as a neo-Confucianist, Chiang was a man of war who led the most ancient and populous country in the world through a quarter century of bloody revolutions, civil conflict, and wars of resistance against Japanese aggression. In 1949, when he was defeated by Mao Zedong—his archrival for leadership of China—he fled to Taiwan, where he ruled for another twenty-five years. Playing a key role in the cold war with China, Chiang suppressed opposition with his “white terror,” controlled inflation and corruption, carried out land reform, and raised personal income, health, and educational levels on the island. Consciously or not, he set the stage for Taiwan’s evolution of a Chinese model of democratic modernization. Drawing heavily on Chinese sources including Chiang’s diaries, The Generalissimo provides the most lively, sweeping, and objective biography yet of a man whose length of uninterrupted, active engagement at the highest levels in the march of history is excelled by few, if any, in modern history. Jay Taylor shows a man who was exceedingly ruthless and temperamental but who was also courageous and conscientious in matters of state. Revealing fascinating aspects of Chiang’s life, Taylor provides penetrating insight into the dynamics of the past that lie behind the struggle for modernity of mainland China and its relationship with Taiwan.
Download or read book Life and Death in Shanghai written by Cheng Nien and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2010-12-14 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A woman who spent more than six years in solitary confinement during Communist China's Cultural Revolution discusses her time in prison. Reissue. A New York Times Best Book of the Year.
Download or read book War Without Rules written by Robert Spalding and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its fight for global dominance, Communist China has thrown out the old rules of war. China expert General Robert Spalding walks us through their new playbook. Many Americans are finally waking up to the alarming reality of China's stealth war on the United States and puzzling over how to push back against its insidious infiltration. What few realize is that we have one real advantage in this war: the Chinese Communist Party strategy for total war has been written out in Unrestricted Warfare, the Chinese book, well known there, that has become their new Art of War. In War Without Rules, retired Air Force Brigadier General Rob Spalding takes Americans inside Unrestricted Warfare. He walks readers through the principles of this book, revealing the Chinese belief that there is no sector of life outside the realm of war. He shows how the CCP itself has promised to use corporate espionage, global pandemics, and trade violations to achieve dominance. Most importantly, he provides insight into how, once Americans are aware of the tactics, we can fight back against CCP’s creeping influence. More than a vital read for those interested in China, War Without Rules is essential reading for anyone—from policymakers and diplomats to businessmen and investors—finally waking up to the stealth war. Knowledge is power, and it’s time to arm yourself.
Download or read book A History of China written by Morris Rossabi and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-02-25 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the complexity of China’s past with this multi-faceted portrayal of the storied nation from a leading expert in the field The newly revised Second Edition of A History of China delivers a comprehensive treatment of the political, economic, social, and cultural history of China that covers all major events and trends that have shaped the country over the centuries. The book is written in a clear and uncomplicated style, sure to be of assistance to undergraduate students with little prior background knowledge in the subject matter. The text examines Chinese history through a global lens to better understand how foreign influences affected domestic policies and practices. It includes discussions of the roles played by non-Chinese ethnic groups in China, like the Tibetans and Uyghurs, and the Mongol and Manchu rulers who held power in China for several centuries. The distinguished author takes pains to incorporate the perspectives and narratives of people traditionally left out of Chinese history, including women, peasants, merchants, and artisans. Readers will also enjoy the inclusion of: A thorough introduction to early and ancient Chinese history, including classical China, the first Chinese empires, and religious and political responses to the period between 220 and 581 CE An exploration of the restoration of Empire under Sui and Tang, as well as post-Tang society and Glorious Song A discussion of China and the Mongol world, including Mongol rule in China and the isolationism and involvement on the global stage of the Ming dynasty A treatment of China in global history, including the Qing era, the Republican period, and the Communist era Perfect for undergraduate students of courses on Chinese history and Central Asian History, the Second Edition of A History of China will also earn a place in the libraries of students studying global history and related classes in history departments and departments of Asian studies. The Blackwell History of the World Series The goal of this ambitious series is to provide an accessible source of knowledge about the entire human past, for every curious person in every part of the world. It will comprise some two dozen volumes, of which some provide synoptic views of the history of particular regions while others consider the world as a whole during a particular period of time. The volumes are narrative in form, giving balanced attention to social and cultural history (in the broadest sense) as well as to institutional development and political change. Each provides a systematic account of a very large subject, but they are also both imaginative and interpretative. The Series is intended to be accessible to the widest possible readership, and the accessibility of its volumes is matched by the style of presentation and production.
Download or read book Chiang Kai Shek written by Jonathan Fenby and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2009-04-27 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a narrative as briskly paced and vividly detailed as an international thriller, this definitive biography of Chiang Kai-shek masterfully maps the tumultuous political career of Nationalist China's generalissimo as it reevaluates his brave but unfulfilled life. Chiang Kai-shek was one of the most influential world figures of the twentieth century. The leader of the Kuomintang, the Nationalist movement in China, by 1928 he had established himself as head of the government in Nanking. But while he managed to survive the political storms of the 1930s, Chiang's power was continually being undermined by the Japanese on one side and the Chinese Communists on the other. Drawing extensively on original Chinese sources and accounts by contemporaneous journalists, acclaimed author Jonathan Fenby explores little-known international connections in Chiang's story as he unfolds a story as fascinating in its conspiratorial intrigues as it is remarkable for its psychological insights. This is the definitive biography of the man who, despite his best intentions, helped create modern-day China.
Download or read book Mao s China and the Cold War written by Jian Chen and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2010-03-15 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive study of China's Cold War experience reveals the crucial role Beijing played in shaping the orientation of the global Cold War and the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. The success of China's Communist revolution in 1949 set the stage, Chen says. The Korean War, the Taiwan Strait crises, and the Vietnam War--all of which involved China as a central actor--represented the only major "hot" conflicts during the Cold War period, making East Asia the main battlefield of the Cold War, while creating conditions to prevent the two superpowers from engaging in a direct military showdown. Beijing's split with Moscow and rapprochement with Washington fundamentally transformed the international balance of power, argues Chen, eventually leading to the end of the Cold War with the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the decline of international communism. Based on sources that include recently declassified Chinese documents, the book offers pathbreaking insights into the course and outcome of the Cold War.
Download or read book Life and Times of Lieutenant General Adrian Carton de Wiart written by Alan Ogden and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-11-04 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this ground-breaking new book, Alan Ogden brings to life Lt Gen sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, soldier, statesman and an often-overlooked figure in British Military and Diplomatic History. Framed through the life of Carton de Wiart this book also offers an exploration of important topics and developments in the first half of the 20th-century, including the Boer War, World War I, World War II and Anglo-Sino relations. This biography ranges from de Wiart's early life, his wartime experiences and role as Churchill's personal representative to Chiang Kai-shek. Ogden draws from an extensive array of primary sources including previously unseen private family papers to examine, in exquisite detail, the life and times of a man who experienced the horrors of war to rise up the ranks and become a personal representative of Winston Churchill and then Clement Attlee. This book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as scholars studying British Military and Diplomatic history in the first half of the twentieth century.
Download or read book The Great Road written by Agnes Smedley and published by . This book was released on 2022-04-26 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2022 Reprint of the 1956 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition and not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. A manuscript of this book was left by Miss Smedley at the time of her death in England in 1950. It has the greatest value both for historians and for the general reader. Miss Smedley spent many evenings over a period of years with Teh, probing his life history, recording his reminiscences and answers to her questions. As a biography of the leader of the Chinese Red Army, therefore, this book is and will remain unique, a priceless documentary source for all historians of the Chinese Revolution, present and future. But it is much more than that. By skillfully weaving the story of Chu Teh into the context of Chinese social and political development, Miss Smedley has succeeded in making modern Chinese history come alive as no other author has done. The drama of the desperately poor peasant boy from a remote region of China who became one of the two principal organizers and guiding spirits of one of the greatest revolutions of all time: this is Miss Smedley's theme, and she handles it superbly. Moreover, thanks to Chu Teh's vivid childhood recollections, we have here an unsurpassed picture of Chinese peasant life and how it gave rise to the movement which finally brought regeneration to nearly a quarter of the human race. Few Americans know China and its people as well as Agnes Smedley did. Her career as correspondent in China started in 1929 when she wrote for the Frankfurter Zeitung and later for the Manchester Guardian. When the Japanese invaded China, Miss medley went to the front with the Chinese Eighth Route Army and later became a field member of the Chinese Red Cross Medical Corps in the war zones. She spent two years on the battleground in China, covering thousands of miles of that vast country. She returned to the United States shortly before Pearl Harbor and here completed the first draft of The Great Road. She was on her way back to her beloved China when she died.
Download or read book The Man who Changed China written by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and published by Crown. This book was released on 2004 with total page 760 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jiang Zemin’s life and leadership sweep through almost eighty tumultuous years of Chinese history: Japanese occupation, Civil War, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Square, and, more recently, dramatic economic growth, tensions with Taiwan, and opportunities and confrontations with America. Jiang’s story is an epic of war, deprivation, revolution, political turmoil, social convulsion, economic reform, national transformation, and international resurgence. To Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a longtime China observer, understanding the legacy of Jiang Zemin is essential for understanding the challenges of contemporary China. By examining Jiang’s life, we observe the clash between China’s traditional culture and chaotic history, and we appreciate how its changes impact the entire world. InThe Man Who Changed China, Kuhn, who was cited by the AsianWall Street Journalfor the “unprecedented access” he was given in the course of writing this book, has produced what the Journal called “probably the closest thing to an authorized biography that’s possible in Communist China.” Here a reader will find a complex and nuanced portrait of China’s senior leader, whose policies continue to exert great influence over the course of his country. Kuhn offers insight into how the Japanese occupation during Jiang’s teenage years imprinted his psyche for life, how he became a Communist, and how, decades later, he struggled to transform the Party in the face of withering criticism. In a sense, Kuhn argues, Jiang’s early skeptics got it right: He was a transitional figure—but not in the way they had meant. With unshakable if paternalistic vision, a lifelong love of Chinese civilization, and backroom political skills that no one had anticipated, Jiang Zemin became an unexpected agent of change, effecting the transition from a traumatized society to a confident, prosperous country rapidly ascending in the new world order. Kuhn shows how Jiang led China through an amazing metamorphosis—from a fretful country destabilized by the turmoil and crackdown in Tiananmen Square into a vibrant nation that became a primary engine of global economic growth. Above all Jiang is a Chinese patriot—and it is important to appreciate what that really means. In offering this unusually intimate and comprehensive personal and political biography, Kuhn demonstrates that Jiang Zemin’s life personifies the history of contemporary China, giving invaluable insight into what China is today and will become in the future.
Download or read book The China Mission George Marshall s Unfinished War 1945 1947 written by Daniel Kurtz-Phelan and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2018-04-10 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Economist Best Book of 2018 A spellbinding narrative of the high-stakes mission that changed the course of America, China, and global politics—and a rich portrait of the towering, complex figure who carried it out. As World War II came to an end, General George Marshall was renowned as the architect of Allied victory. Set to retire, he instead accepted what he thought was a final mission—this time not to win a war, but to stop one. Across the Pacific, conflict between Chinese Nationalists and Communists threatened to suck in the United States and escalate into revolution. His assignment was to broker a peace, build a Chinese democracy, and prevent a Communist takeover, all while staving off World War III. In his thirteen months in China, Marshall journeyed across battle-scarred landscapes, grappled with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, and plotted and argued with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his brilliant wife, often over card games or cocktails. The results at first seemed miraculous. But as they started to come apart, Marshall was faced with a wrenching choice. Its consequences would define the rest of his career, as the secretary of state who launched the Marshall Plan and set the standard for American leadership, and the shape of the Cold War and the US-China relationship for decades to come. It would also help spark one of the darkest turns in American civic life, as Marshall and the mission became a first prominent target of McCarthyism, and the question of “who lost China” roiled American politics. The China Mission traces this neglected turning point and forgotten interlude in a heroic career—a story of not just diplomatic wrangling and guerrilla warfare, but also intricate spycraft and charismatic personalities. Drawing on eyewitness accounts both personal and official, it offers a richly detailed, gripping, close-up, and often surprising view of the central figures of the time—from Marshall, Mao, and Chiang to Eisenhower, Truman, and MacArthur—as they stood face-to-face and struggled to make history, with consequences and lessons that echo today.
