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Overview
“A dizzying and exhilarating journey. . . . Understanding how China sees itself and how it justifies its actions is critical to understanding today’s world. Great State offers some compelling lessons for today, and for all our futures.”—New Statesman (UK)
The world-renowned scholar and author of Vermeer’s Hat does for China what Mary Beard did for Rome in SPQR: Timothy Brook analyzes the last eight centuries of China’s relationship with the world in this magnificent history that brings together accounts from civil servants, horse traders, spiritual leaders, explorers, pirates, emperors, migrant workers, invaders, visionaries, and traitors—creating a multifaceted portrait of this highly misunderstood nation.
China is one of the oldest states in the world. It achieved its approximate current borders with the Ascendancy of the Yuan dynasty in the thirteenth century, and despite the passing of one Imperial dynasty to the next, has maintained them for the eight centuries since. China remained China through the Ming, the Qing, the Republic, the Occupation, and Communism. But despite the desires of some of the most powerful people in the Great State through the ages, China has never been alone in the world. It has had to contend with invaders as well as foreign traders and imperialists. Its rulers for the majority of the last eight centuries have not been Chinese.
China became a mega-state not by conquering others, Timothy Brook contends, but rather by being conquered by others and then claiming right of succession to the empires of those Great States. What the Mongols and Manchu ruling families wrought, the Chinese ruling families of the Ming, the Republic, and the People’s Republic, have perpetuated. Yet a contemporary Chinese idea of a ‘fatherland’ that is, and always has been, completely and naturally Chinese persists. Brook argues that China, like everywhere, is the outcome of history, and like every state, rests on its capacities to conquer and suppress.
In The Great State, Brook examines China’s relationship with the world at large for the first time, from the Yuan through to the present, by following the stories of ordinary and extraordinary people navigating the spaces where China met, and continues to meet, the world.
The Great State includes black-and-white photos throughout.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780063143449 |
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Publisher: | HarperCollins |
Publication date: | 09/20/2022 |
Pages: | 464 |
Sales rank: | 620,663 |
Product dimensions: | 5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.20(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
List of Maps xi
List of Illustrations xviii
Preface xx
Introduction: Ten Thousand Countries 1
Vancouver, 2019
The Yuan Great State
1 The Great Khan and His Portraitist: Xanadu, 1280 17
2 The Blue Princess and the Il-khan: Tabriz, 1295 36
3 The Plague: Caffa, 1346 53
The Ming Great State
4 The Eunuch and His Hostage: Ceylon, 1411 79
5 The Castaway and the Horse Trader: Zhejiang/Beijing, 1488 109
6 The Pirate and the Bureaucrat: Canton, 1517 139
7 The Englishman and the Goldsmith: Bantam, 1604 171
8 The Missionary and His Convert: Nanjing, 1616 201
The Qing Great State
9 The Occupied: The Yangzi Delta, 1645 235
10 The Lama and the Prince: Kokonor, 1719 265
11 The Merchant and His Man: Ostend/Canton, 1793 287
12 The Photographer and His Coolie: Johannesburg, 1905 318
The Republic
13 The Collaborator and His Lawyer: Shanghai, 1946 347
Epilogue: One Hundred and Ninety-Three Countries 372
New York, 1971/Quito, 2010
Notes 394
Index 427