Reddit Reddit reviews The Search for Modern China

We found 13 Reddit comments about The Search for Modern China. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Asian History
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The Search for Modern China
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13 Reddit comments about The Search for Modern China:

u/CTR_CUCK_SHILL · 73 pointsr/history

Everything I've read, and that's not much, has suggested that it escalated when the Japanese found more resistance than they bargained for after assuming it would be an easy invasion. The soldiers were frustrated and emasculated in how difficult their invasion actually was and so they enacted brutal revenge on everything that moved once they finally overtook the city.

EDIT: Clarification; It wasn't just Nanking that frustrated them, it was the unanticipated resistance by the Chinese throughout the entire war that upset the expectations of the Japanese army leading up to the brutal siege on the city.

'The actual military invasion of Nanking was preceded by a tough battle at Shanghai that began in the summer of 1937. Chinese forces there put up surprisingly stiff resistance against the Japanese Army which had expected an easy victory in China. The Japanese had even bragged they would conquer all of China in just three months. The stubborn resistance by the Chinese troops upset that timetable, with the battle dragging on through the summer into late fall. This infuriated the Japanese and whetted their appetite for the revenge that was to follow at Nanking.'


EDIT 2: Jonathan Spence writes "there is no obvious explanation for this grim event, nor can one be found. The Japanese soldiers, who had expected easy victory, instead had been fighting hard for months and had taken infinitely higher casualties than anticipated. They were bored, angry, frustrated, tired. The Chinese women were undefended, their menfolk powerless or absent. The war, still undeclared, had no clear-cut goal or purpose. Perhaps all Chinese, regardless of sex or age, seemed marked out as victims."
Spence, Jonathan D. (1999) The Search for Modern China, W.W. Norton and Company. p. 424; ISBN 0-393-97351-4.

u/makebelievee · 8 pointsr/history

The Search for Modern China by Johnathan Spence is an excellent history of China from the 16th Century to 1989, with extensive coverage of Mao Zedong and the fallout of his rule.

u/egjeg · 5 pointsr/ChineseHistory

There's a good audio course called Yao to Mao. I like this because it was easy to listen to while travelling around China.

My favourite comprehensive history book is The search for modern china

u/trashpile · 4 pointsr/China

Jonathan Spence's Search for Modern China is a nice overview of recent-ish stuff. Spence's other works are also pretty fantastic.

u/FraudianSlip · 3 pointsr/ChineseHistory

Well, the Cambridge History of China is a great resource, but I don't know if you can find that in eBook form or not. Those tomes cover just about everything you'd need.

If you're interested in modern Chinese history, The Search for Modern China is an excellent book.

For the Song dynasty: The Age of Confucian Rule, and Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion. Just remember that the books can't cover everything, so occasionally they oversimply - particularly Kuhn's book and its overemphasis on Confucianism.

Oh, and one more recommendation for now: the Shi Ji (Records of the Grand Historian).

u/jombiezebus · 3 pointsr/ChineseHistory

This is not biographical, but for anyone interested in the period, The Search For Modern China is worth mentioning.

u/ScholarsStage · 2 pointsr/ChineseHistory

A book I would recommend looking at is Jonathan Spence's The Search For Modern China *, which is one of the best and most readable books that touches on every question you've asked. You can follow its foot notes for more material citations

u/thenwhatissoylentred · 2 pointsr/China

you should read some books! jonathan spence's search for modern china is a good broad introduction.

u/Whitegook · 2 pointsr/China

To be fair there's some truth in what you are saying. Tibet was a tribute nation to various dynasties since something like the 14th century, however I don't think any of them directly controlled Tibet - and they especially did not control the Tibetan Buddhist religious organization (for better or worse). It was more like frequent symbolic gift giving and emperors asking lamas sometimes to give off good impressions to their people other times as a way to show face while receiving gifts. Source

u/pustak · 2 pointsr/AskHistorians

I would go with Jonathan Spence's Search for Modern China for, well, modern China.

For a good basic though not comprehensive read on American Indians maybe Daniel Richter's Facing East from Indian Country. For a taste of more modern, survival oriented Indian history I think I'd point people to James Clifford's chapter (in The Predicament of Culture) on the Mashpee Indian land suit in the 1970's.

u/Entropian · 2 pointsr/unpopularopinion

19th century is not today, and yet Hong Kong is a problem right now. The British signed 99-year ease for Hong Kong in 1898, thinking that 99 years basically means forever. Then in the 1980s, the Chinese actually came to the British with receipts, demanding Hong Kong back. Politics outlast people's lives. History outlasts people's lives.

Just because the CCP is fucking terrible doesn't mean that the opium wars were fake, and that everything the West did in China back then was hunky dory. There's a clear through line from Western imperialism to the collapse of Qing in 1911. Read a history book written by a British person if you so choose.

I can laugh at the West without condoning what the CCP is doing. It's possible.

u/hawk_222b · 1 pointr/China

The Penguin History of Modern China
is a great overview and very easy to read.

One of the best books on the subject I've read is
The Search for Modern China by. Jonathan Spence but it is very dry.