'A learned, wise, wonderfully written single volume history of a
civilisation that I knew I should know more about' Tom Holland
'Masterful and engrossing...well-paced, eminently readable and
well-timed. A must-read for those who want - and need - to know
about the China of yesterday, today and tomorrow' Peter Frankopan
China's story is extraordinarily rich and dramatic. Now Michael
Wood, one of the UK's pre-eminent historians, brings it all
together in a major new one-volume history of China that is
essential reading for anyone who wants to understand its burgeoning
role in our world today. 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. The story is enriched with
the latest archaeological and documentary discoveries;
correspondence and court cases going back to the Qin and Han
dynasties; family letters from soldiers in the real-life Terracotta
Army; stories from Silk Road merchants and Buddhist travellers,
along with memoirs and diaries of emperors, poets and peasants. In
the modern era, the book is full of new insights, with the
electrifying manifestos of the feminist revolutionaries Qiu Jin and
He Zhen, extraordinary eye-witness accounts of the Japanese
invasion, the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution under
Chairman Mao, and fascinating newly published sources for the great
turning points in China's modern history, including the Tiananmen
Square crisis of 1989, and the new order of President Xi Jinping. A
compelling portrait of a single civilisation over an immense period
of time, the book is full of intimate detail and colourful voices,
taking us from the desolate Mongolian steppes to the ultra-modern
world of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. It also asks what were
the forces that have kept China together for so long? Why was China
overtaken by the west after the 18th century? What lies behind
China's extraordinary rise today? The Story of China tells a
thrilling story of intense drama, fabulous creativity and deep
humanity; a portrait of a country that will be of the greatest
importance to the world in the twenty-first century.
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