A History of China (Unabridged)
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3.3 • 8 Ratings
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
Trying to squeeze an entire history of Chinese civilization into a brief, one volume account is a formidable task, but one that has succeeded brilliantly here. Hilda Hookham has provided us with a concise story that, while not getting too entangled with personalities and cultural issues, manages to navigate the swirling passage of events that comprise over 3,000 years of Chinese political history. As a result, one is left with a singular impression of what Chinese civilization has meant, both as a cultural reality, and as a historical political force. It has been a tumultuous journey.
Recurring themes repeat themselves in dynasty after dynasty: order and statecraft, resource allocation and use, imperialism and population growth, barbarian invasion and subjugation of outlying districts. Each dynasty right up to the current communist regime has followed similar paths. In this brilliant synthesis, we begin to see the patterns of stable government, the building up of infrastructure, reforms to help the peasantry, and reforms of government bureaucracy. Then comes the destabilizing influences of corruption, debauched court life, demands for greater taxation, failing infrastructure, famine, military revolt and invasions by barbarians. The peasants revolt, the military crumbles and a new dynasty takes control, with or without the support of foreign powers, depending on the period. Eventually, as in the case of the Mongols and the Manchurians, the barbarians end up as rulers.
Throughout all of this turmoil, the essence of Chinese civilization has endured, sometimes, as in the case of the murderous Mao regime, at the cost of millions of lives. From Confucius and Lao-Tzu to Sun Yatsen, Chang Kaishek and Mao Zedong, Chinese civilization unfolds here in this audiobook as a comprehensible and highly enjoyable summary.
Customer Reviews
A cursory overview
But what can be expected in 10 hours on this venerable nation? Recent history, Mao onwards, lacks the true tragedy of reforms, openly acknowledged by the recording. The history after the fall of the Ming is written without the love of earlier episodes except for the Taiping Rebellion. The book relies heavily on excerpts which can at time become tedious but overall I'd say this is a perfectly acceptable introduction to the vast sweep of Chinese history.
OK overview come Maoist hatchet job.
Given that no other audiobook is available treating the same subject, this book is worth the time and money.
Condensing the entire history of China into one volume is an unenviable task. Nevertheless, the author manages to give a very good overview of the various key events, the societal nature and rise and fall of the successive dynasties.
This main part, up till around 1900 is the strength of the book.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the Maoist period the book is completely blind to the atrocities and disastrous policy failures of the Mao government. This is exasperating, and somewhat puts the entire integrity of the work into question. This, however, should also been seen in the perspective that it todays China a common assessment is that Mao got things mainly right, despite the catastrophes and the murders, and got China back on track.
As is well known, and is well detailed in this book, the plight of the vast masses of Chinese was absolutely appalling for millennia, so Mao’s China may have been a step up.
Probably not worth it...
This book was clearly written by someone with an extremely leftist mindset. It completely brushes over the tragedies following the revolution and the crimes of Mao, although they are later added by the publisher as an addendum. It's clear that the author, who wrote this a looong time ago, even before the economic reforms of china, was writing some kind of anti-capitalist rant (probably in protest over Vietnam?). Any book that includes lines calling the communist revolution a liberation of the Chinese people and a beginning of the process of democratization clearly does not know what it's talking about.
The early chapters on the historic dynasties are ok, though very cursory... You might learn about as much from reading Wikipedia articles on the dynasties as from reading this book. You will learn no reliable information about Mao, the nationalist government or anything that happened in the 20th century.
Some nice details are added, but I feel that for the price... the details are not enough. The writing style is alright... but we're not here to read fiction lol, in a history book it's the facts that count.
It is interesting to read an old history book on China though because you can clearly see just how bad the misperceptions about China were in the west, if this author, an academic, had no idea what she was talking about, imagine the general population.