(Part 3) Best chinese history books according to redditors
We found 1,051 Reddit comments discussing the best chinese history books. We ranked the 422 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 41-60. You can also go back to the previous section.
Absolutely. There are a couple of things going on. The first thing I'd like to link about this is the letter sent back to the UK in 1793 when they tried to set up trading relations. My favorite bit is
>Our dynasty's majestic virtue has penetrated unto every country under Heaven, and Kings of all nations have offered their costly tribute by land and sea. As your Ambassador can see for himself, we possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and have no use for your country's manufactures.
The thing is.. at the time, the Emperor wasn't just being a douche. He was absolutely right. China already had muskets as good as 1790s muskets. China had mass silk production, which was way nicer than the mass linen production that was kicking into gear in Europe. They already had porcelain that was much nicer than European ceramics. So on and so forth.
The only reason the opium trade kicks off is because there is literally nothing the British traders can bring that the Chinese want. Before the British start bringing it, they're literally just paying for all of the things I listed above (that are in very high demand in Europe) with straight silver.
Here's where the trouble starts. The Qing dynasty's taxes and treasury were all based on silver. However, silver was suddenly being pumped into the economy at very high rates. This caused pretty severe inflation--since there were more taels of silver around, each one was worth less as prices of goods and services rose, and the flat tax assessments that had been established centuries ago suddenly generated much less real income for the state. The Qing were too slow to respond to this and when they eventually tried to raise taxes to compensate, it caused widespread unrest. This was happening at the same time as a population explosion. The reasons for it are somewhat undecided, but which may have been in part influenced by the West in the form of the humble sweet potato, which had arrived in the early 1700s and (similar to regular potatoes in Europe) unlocked the farming of tons of semi-arable land and drastically increased available calories.
As a result, the Qing dynasty was already facing huge issues. It was at this point that Europe, for the first time in world history, began to surpass China's sphere of influence in production, population, and practical military power. (This is something I think a lot of people forget.. they just assume western hegemony and technological superiority is an eternal given, when it was a very recent development). The Opium war happens and China just gets clowned. This makes the people even more pissed than they were at the tax increases, the vastly increased number of people competing for static government jobs and only suppressed by a static army.
Now the Qing is in a super precarious position. Remember, the leaders aren't actually ethnic Han Chinese--they're Manchus whose ancestors had claimed the throne 150 years previous, when the Ming government was experiencing its own internal strife and thought they could invite the Manchus in to work for them (this backfired). As a result, nativist sentiment had already been simmering under the surface, especially among the landed, educated gentry that formed the backbone of the Chinese government's administration. Reform efforts by the Qing were seen as foreign meddling, and the educated landowners would often stir up the peasants to resist all foreign ideas as more Qing-invented nonsense created to destroy the greatest culture on earth. Telegraph lines were cut, railway lines would be sabotaged. People echoed what has always been conservative sentiment.. "Why can't it just be like it was before?" Most people in China had no real conception of how or why Westernizing was practical or desirable and merely saw it as an assault on their way of life.
The Qing (specifically, the Dowager Empress; there were factions that wanted to go full-Western, including her son who was technically supposed to be in charge, but she and the Eunuchs shut that down pretty hard) essentially had to play both sides against the middle; the only way to survive themselves was to redirect the nativist anger against the REAL foreigners from the West, rather than the foreigners in the palace. Unfortunately, this makes it a lot harder to implement reforms or spread technology that is visibly from the people you're saying are ruining the country. In the end, the Qing failed to play either side; they were completely dominated by the West and their practical rule of the countryside broke down until it was entirely in the hands of warlords, setting the stage for a period of disunity and unrest that wouldn't be resolved until Mao wins the civil war nearly a century later.
So, uh, yes.
For sources: Hsu; Rise of Modern China
Hucker: China’s Imperial Past: An Introduction to Chinese history and Culture
Clunis: Superfluous things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China
Believe me I know how the world works, and off course it's natural for people to take care of themselves, but with the Chinese it's a whole different ball game.
They don't care about anything but themselves and their family, and sometimes not even that. They would cheat you blind, and fuck you over without blinking as long as they know they can get away with it.
They care only for appearance, and ignore the substance.
To get a good idea about what China is about, I recommend reading Red Dust by Ma Jian
I can't fathom why the Great Leap Forward isn't more well known, it's such a powerful case study of total institutional breakdown. It's so many people who deserve to be remembered for what went wrong.
Dogma drove policy regardless of the results, and fear drove self censorship which drove misinformation all the way up official channels. Farmers had to suddenly collectivise, radically alter their farming methods and hit increasingly absurd new yield quotas. Yet the consistent official result was always not only success, but roaring success: highest crop yields ever, highest iron yield in the region, because success meant loyalty. Failure meant you weren't Mao-ing hard enough, and according to official broadcasts, every region but yours was doing super.
When farmers couldn't hit their quota, that meant the local governor didn't hit his quota, which led to villages draining their rice stores and melting down their pots for iron.
On paper, it looked like a spectacular success, but at the ground level villages were stripping tree bark for food. The system was harsh on failure and officials were competitive with their quotas, so it totally incentivised lying and desperately important news wasn't being reported. The famine was well underway by the time the facts reached Beijing, or were acknowledged. Mao would retreat to his bedroom for days around this time.
Even worse, this early misinformation period accelerated the famine. The radio would broadcast artificially high stats on food and recommended people have food festivals in celebration, so towns gorged on food stores they couldn't replenish.
Then the radio would ask citizens to have more babies for the workforce, so the number of mouths also massively increased as the food to feed them with was vanishing. It was fucking madness.
ps: while I'm at it, Hungry Ghosts is a great book on the subject, from a lot of firsthand investigative journalism by the author.
It appears in the book Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China by Philip P. Pan, which was published by Simon and Schuster in 2009. Here's a passage:
>In the summer of 1950, Lin traveled the countryside with one of thousands of work teams the party used to redistribute farmland from landlords to the peasants who once toiled for them. It was a violent campaign, with a death toll as high as 2 million, but she had no misgivings about the party's methods. In letters Hu discovered, she described her pride in supervising the execution of one landlord, and the "cruel happiness" she felt when she ordered another placed in a vat of freezing water and listened to him scream. She referred to Mao as "a red star in my heart."
The "Hu" mentioned above was Hu Jie, the guy who made the documentary on Lin's life - Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul. Apparently, the letters were written while Lin was in prison. They were sent to her sister, who kept them. Around 500 pages worth.
Hu got the letters from a guy named Gan Cui, whom you might remember if you saw the documentary. He was Lin's lover when they were assigned to work together at the library. Lin's troubles rubbed off on him and he was sent to a labor camp in Xinjiang where he spent a couple decades. He returned to Beijing in 1979 and went looking for Lin, only to find out that she'd been executed.
Lin's sister had died during this period, and the family gave Lin's letters to Gan, who eventually gave them to Hu for his documentary. That's where the info comes from.
Nah they literally harvest peoples' organs. There is a book on it. "The Bloody Harvest".
Edit: amazon.com/Bloody-Harvest-Organ-Harvesting-Practitioners/dp/0980887976
Daoism is wonderful, but in the West, it's even more common to find New Age ideas among self-proclaimed Daoists who have read the Dao De Jing and called it a day than it is to find Westerners misrepresenting the dharma. Many think it's simply about doing whatever you want or "going with the flow", paying no mind to the thousands of years of philosophical development. To fully grasp it, you absolutely must spend time around hereditary Daoists from places like China, or at least read about them. There is a big difference in how historical Daoists have practiced versus what people on the internet do.
I would stay away from books like the Tao of Pooh, or anything similarly named The Tao of [X] personally. They might be entertaining, but they are often not correct. For a beginner, I would instead recommend Seven Taoist Masters, translated by Eva Wong. It's a narrative, but it introduces many of the core ideas of a significant number of Daoists and requires less interpretation than do things like the DDJ.
For some information on Daoist practice in China, there are the Daoism chapters in The Souls of China by the journalist Ian Johnson.
Finally, if you are interested in something a little more dry and historical, take a look at Early Daoist Scriptures, which goes into many ideas that internet Daoists won't discuss. Things like spirit bureaucracy and mediation between realms.
Don't let yourself fall into the trap that many others do when approaching it, which is to arrogantly assume you know everything after reading a single book and are now in tune with the universe. Daoist ideas are just as rich as the Buddhist canon and the Western world desperately needs a more nuanced understanding of it.
As far as China goes, Fanshen, The Unknown Cultural Revolution, and The Battle for China's Past are probably a great place to start.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilgour%E2%80%93Matas_report
https://www.amazon.com/Bloody-Harvest-Organ-Harvesting-Practitioners/dp/0980887976
Some recommendations:
To say that China was "unified" at various points is a bit misleading, as it elides the fact that what constituted "China" changed, primarily growing, over time. It's only really in retrospective that a continuous line of "official" Chinese dynasties representing the unification of "all under Heaven" (天下) is established. It was only over time that what constituted 天下 grew to include most of what we now consider to be "China", primarily by conquering, colonizing, assimilating, and otherwise taking over the peoples that were already in these areas. Wikipedia hosts a neat animated animated gif that sort of shows this, though it doesn't really separate 天下 from other territories. I recommend China's Imperial Past by Charles Hucker as a great introductory overview of Chinese history that covers much of these events, though obviously with such a broad span of history to deal with it doesn't go super in-depth on any of it.
Additionally, what constitutes "China" today is not even completely agreed upon, as well. When you say:
>Today, China is essentially totally united under the People's Republic.
The PRC would not agree with this statement, since the government there very much believes that the Republic of China (aka Taiwan) is an inherent part of "China", whereas the Republic of China has previously laid claim to the entirety of Qing Dynasty territory which included Mongolia and Northern Vietnam (both claims since rescinded). The island of Taiwan itself was not even under nominal Chinese rule until the Ming Dynasty, as well, but is now considered (by some) to be a part of "China".
Even within the PRC there is debate about whether all of the PRC territory is "rightfully" Chinese, for example in Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang province there are some who believe that these areas should be independent from Beijing and that neither the people living there nor the territory are really "Chinese".
So the answer to your question is that "China" was not easy to unite, as the process took almost two thousand years, and it's not clear that it's actually united even now.
I think you may have a misconstrued idea of what happened to China during the Opium Wars. Opium didn't so much experience ending prohibition as it was Western powers 1. forcing a market that didn't want to exist 2. subsidizing that market to gain a foothold on a sovereign nation 3. Allowing that market to not prosecute crimes against the market participants (theft, bribery, coercion, murder, etc...).
Furthermore, the opium pushing has been vastly overstated in comparison to the mercantile and poor trading contracts (in exchange for opium) pushed upon the Chinese by the Western powers. Opium didn't so much cripple the Chinese Economy as Western Imperialism and the weakness of the Dowager court traded it away. See: https://www.amazon.com/Opium-War-Dreams-Making-Modern/dp/1468311735/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1468311735&pd_rd_r=49d960e3-f13a-11e8-a62f-ebaf1168255c&pd_rd_w=KmXOT&pd_rd_wg=gyt7P&pf_rd_i=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=18bb0b78-4200-49b9-ac91-f141d61a1780&pf_rd_r=5PTN4JK8F2ETYZQ9AW3M&pf_rd_s=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=5PTN4JK8F2ETYZQ9AW3M
My solution has been tried, see the Prohibition of Alcohol in the United States and its repeal. There's a pretty clear economic cause and effect of the gangster heyday of the late 19th century and the repeal of those policies. Its not exactly my opinion either but the consensus view.
Furthermore, there's widespread evidence from 3rd world countries with weak drug controls lead to less organized crime (leading to no apriori evidence that those lack of controls effect addiction rates. Poverty, misery indexes, and inequality seem to drive these things).
States that have decriminalized have found a drastic decrease in criminal activity regarding organized crime and a drastically less influential cartel structure (Portugal, Netherlands, France).
So imo, the burden of proof is on you to say that it would "endanger the US" and "its never been tried before". Maybe you could qualify your claims instead of just asserting that what I'm saying is an opinion and not a reasonable outcome based on the evidence at hand.
Not a strict history, but Out of Mao's Shadow is an interesting look at life under the CCP (focusing much, but not exclusively, on its evolution after Mao), told mainly through the eyes of a number of very compelling individuals such as Lin Zhao and the filmmaker who attempts to tell her story decades later. I'd recommend it highly as a companion to the book you ultimately choose.
oh and red dust.. what a great book aswell.
http://www.amazon.com/Red-Dust-Path-Through-China/dp/0385720238
u/Erebus_of_darkness, u/Osroes-the-300th
There is a helpful and basic introductory series called "History of Imperial China". I have not read their books on the Yuan & Ming or the Qing, but I liked what I saw in their book on the Tang. They're basic, topical, and makes for an easy overview.
In America, the "New Qing" school mostly dominates discussion of Qing Dynasty history. China tends to view the Manchu Qing (and the Mongol Yuan) as part of a multicultural "China" state that has existed since time immemorial. "New Qing" disputes that by essentially arguing that the Manchu only considered "China" as one part of their empire, and thus ruled over Buddhist theocratic Tibet, Buddhist nomadic Mongolia, and Muslim Xinjiang (among others) differently from how it administered core China. This obviously ruffles feathers in China, since this ethnic-focused historiography seems to be trying to start something, but both sides of the ocean can probably agree that it at least provides a way of looking at things, including at ethnic relationships in Qing China. For New Qing, China Marches West is perhaps the most salient right now. You can also look at The Manchus (and look at The Tibetans in the same series while you're at it, since Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetans played important roles in the Ming, Qing, and modern China). Mark Eliot also is a prominent "New Qing" professor, and this seems to be his hallmark book, The Manchu Way.
During the Ming Dynasty, the Neo-Confucianism ideology solidified and became the guiding philosophy of East Asia. For a primary source peek at this philosophy, this translation of Wang Yangming seems a decent start.
The Forbidden City is the crowning achievement of Chinese palatial architecture, a culmination of imperial wisdom transmitted across thousands of years. No less, this book is a great, short introductory resource that is visually pleasing. I don't think it's a direct translation of the author's authoritative Chinese works, but he is the foremost expert on the architecture of the Forbidden City, and Nancy Steinhardt is an excellent authority on traditional Chinese architecture.
See if you can't find this book, The Class of 1761, in a library, going through the minutiae of the Chinese imperial examination system. I plan to look at this as well.
Chinese literature and opera came into maturity during the Ming and Qing Dynasty. So if you're feeling for long reads, read any of the Four Classic Novels of China. In particular, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, while not covering Ming or Qing (written in late Yuan/early Ming) will let you interface with literally any East Asian since they will know all the anecdotes and the Dream of the Red Chamber is noted for its extreme depth (entire departments devoted to studying it) and particular insight into mid-Qing society.
For opera, probably the Peony Pavilion is good enough, as a classic of Kunqu opera, the OG Chinese opera.
And honestly, just go to chinaknowledge.de ... It's a very comprehensive website surprisingly enough.
[https://www.amazon.com/Search-Modern-China-Third/dp/0393934519/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487811047&sr=8-1&keywords=the+search+for+modern+china](You need this book) and [https://www.amazon.com/China-Henry-Kissinger/dp/0143121316/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487811112&sr=8-1&keywords=On+China](this book)
It is impossible to answer your question without understanding the "Century of Humiliation." A lot of that is still prevalent in modern China, and those two books will be some solid go-tos. Spence focuses on China; Kissinger discusses the United States.
Edit: I have no idea why it is not formatting correctly.
Oh god, forget it!
Not only are the vast majority not translated, even if they were, most of them are only legible by people with specific training.
One book you can read which is fairly accurate is early daoist scriptures
https://www.amazon.ca/Early-Daoist-Scriptures-Stephen-Bokenkamp/dp/0520219317
Which has much of the important early material from zhengtong daozang and is very accurate.
For quanzhen material you should just read it as it's own thing and not worry about Dao zang until you have the lay if the land.
Two of the absolute best:
https://www.amazon.com/Wars-Asia-1911-1949-S-Paine/dp/1107697476/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1498655622&sr=1-1&keywords=wars+for+asia
https://www.amazon.com/FIRE-LAKE-Vietnamese-Americans-Vietnam/dp/B008BCQE7W/ref=sr_1_2_twi_har_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1498655669&sr=1-2&keywords=fire+in+the+lake
/u/EnclavedMicrostate has previously answered questions about:
More answers are welcome. See also The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of Modern China by Julia Lovell, in the subreddit's booklist.
Thanks again for putting that together. Forgive me if I've said this before, but it might be worthwhile to add the works of Prof. Stephen Bokenkamp, such as
Review by: Stephen R. Bokenkamp
Journal of the American Oriental Society
Vol. 113, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1993), pp. 444-449
Pick up the book Imperial China 900-1800 it does better job of describe the real meaning of tributary system than I could ever hope to achieve.
One of the best historiographies ever composed on USA involvement in Viet-Nam:
https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Lake-Vietnamese-Americans-Vietnam/dp/0316159190/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505052020&sr=1-1&keywords=fire+in+the+lake+by+frances+fitzgerald
Pretty good:
https://www.amazon.com/Embers-War-Empire-Americas-Vietnam/dp/0375756477/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505068806&sr=1-1&keywords=embers+of+war+logevall
Pretty good:
https://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-History-Stanley-Karnow/dp/0140265473/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505068845&sr=1-1&keywords=vietnam+a+history
I know you're looking for films, but Jonathan Spence is extremely thorough in his writings, and simply tells the story without injecting his opinion.
French sinologist Lucien Bianco's Origins of the Chinese Revolution does a pretty good job too of articulating post-Qing to early Mao times.
Phillip P Pan's Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China
A very interesting book that helps to contextualise a lot of what is going on in China, all made accessible by Pan's excellent writing style.
Henry Kissinger's Diplomacy
A fascinating book, not just because it is written by someone as outspoken and controversial as Kissinger. The book is an eye-opening exploration into international relations processes and also shines a new light on many of the diplomatic issues that linger today.
Samuel Hawley's "Imjin War" is a gripping read -> http://www.amazon.com/The-Imjin-War-Sixteenth-Century-Invasion/dp/0992078628
Either of theses are a good read on the subject:
The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of Modern China
The Chinese Opium Wars
I think the work of Patricia Ebrey is perfect for what you are after. Try these books:
China: A Cultural, Social, and Political History
and
Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook
She has also set up some nice stuff on their website at UW:
http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/
https://www.amazon.com/Tiananmen-Massacre-Evidence-Disinformation-Humanity/dp/1494326590
I have two books to recommend:
I hope you'll find this reply helpful. :) Enjoy~!
EDIT: Stephen Turnbull's Samurai Invasion: Japan's Korean War 1592-1598 is the perfect companion to Hawley's book. They go well together, so you should get this, as well.
The Imjin War.
https://www.amazon.com/Imjin-War-Sixteenth-Century-Invasion-Attempt/dp/0992078628
This dispute has been going on for a long time, and will continue to do so.
Here's a great book on the subject from 12 years ago:
http://www.amazon.ca/War-Top-World-Struggle-Afghanistan/dp/0415934680
China Wakes. I cannot stress this highly enough. Authored by New York times writers who were there in the late 80s as China's economy was taking off and the country was undergoing a transformation into what it is today. Very interesting stories about individual Chinese they met as well as big picture stuff. It gave me a much better understanding of how China came to be the place it is today.
http://www.amazon.com/China-Wakes-Struggle-Rising-Power/dp/0679763937
Lots of great answers everyone. I see that I have a lot of reading to do and that is a good thing. Just for anyone also interested I compiled all of the named books into a list and sourced them, for your reading pleasure.
The Accidental Guerrilla by David Kilcullen
Counterinsurgency by David Kilcullen
Out of the Mountains by David Kilcullen
Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons From Malaya and Vietnam by John Nagl
Tactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant Muslim Combat Methods by John Poole
Modern War: Counter-Insurgency as Malpractice by Edward Luttwak
A Savage War of Peace by Alistar Horne
The Bear Went Over the Mountain by Lester Grau
Invisible Armies by Max Boot
Vid Putivla do Karpat by Sydir Artemovych Kovpac
Fire in the Lake by Frances FitzGerald
Inside Rebellion by Jeremy M. Weinstein
Democracy is not perfect but I don't see the need to have to append that disclaimer to every China related discussion. It's best to keep it out of the discussion and instead talk instead about what route China will take to satisfy it's people.
I agree with the admiration of aspects of China's rule, the Republic interpretation is interesting. Having leaders who have no need to contend with religious, populist and opposition opinion leads to efficiency and consensus but it exerts it's own cost in terms of corruption and injustice.
Under such a system it's OK as long as the people with power want the same thing as the people without it, however it seems that every time the people's interests collide with the interest of the Party, the Party wins.
Using the veil of ignorance position I still believe life under democratic rule is a better choice for society, creases and all.
>I am honestly curious as to whether their system is sustainable.
I suggest you check out Philip P Pan's book,
good talk here (although he's a better writer than speaker!).
Choice excerpt: “Many people who care about China tell themselves that democratization is inevitable,” Pan writes, “but I have seen that there is nothing automatic about political change. It is a difficult, messy, and often heart-breaking process, and it happens—when it happens at all—because of imperfect individuals who fight, take risks, and sacrifice for it. They can be noble, courageous, selfless, stubborn, vain, naive, calculating and reckless.”
This book explains a lot.
Here is the mobile version of your link
I strongly, strongly recommend this book:
F.W. Mote, Imperial China, 900-1800 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003).
It is a long book - but Chinese history really is long! Despite its length it is very readable and accessible, and about the only book out there that provides an actual narrative of Chinese history, which is what most folks want when they start out.
Yes. There's an excellent book on the matter by Naval War College prof SCM Paine that I'd highly recommend, The Wars for Asia, 1911-1949. There's a lot of history in there that most Americans don't know.
A related book from the same author covering some of the same ground but with a broader focus is The Japanese Empire: Grand Strategy from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War. The latter's a good read for an Eve player because it's a good primer on the whole "what is grand strategy" question that's good for would-be professionals (Naval War College, remember) and interested amateurs alike. I can't recommend both books highly enough, they're simply excellent and cover the material without ever getting bogged down in minutiae.
Used this book for my first survey course on Chinese history. It glosses over loads of info, and should not be used alone for any sort of real research, but it's good enough if you just want to go a level above wikipedia.
https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/0312790945
I want to add another one, Imperial China I'm only two hours in but it seems like an awesome book. I do have to credit /u/lukeweiss for the suggestion. I am not familiar with F.K. Motes personally so I can not vouch for his accuracy but lukeweiss seems to have a great understanding of the subject and a good attitude towards Motes.
http://www.amazon.ca/Imperial-China-900-1800-F-Mote/dp/0674012127
I took a course on Chinese history and culture in undergrad and the two textbooks we used were,
https://www.amazon.com/China-Cultural-Social-Political-History/dp/0618133879/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=CHINA%3A+CULTURAL%2C+SOCIAL+%26+POLITICAL+HISTORY&qid=1566906878&s=gateway&sr=8-1
https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-China-Economy-History-Political/dp/0809016516/ref=sr_1_21?keywords=chinese+history+and+culture&qid=1566906550&s=gateway&sr=8-21
However, I think they were a little weak on things like mythology, etc. and a stronger focus on history. It does discuss cultural things, though, like various philosophers of the time, some of the inventions of the time, some famous writers, etc.
A textbook I used by Jonathan Spence (The Search for Modern China) was incredibly easy to read, huge, and oddly enjoyable. Unfortunately, for the poli sci course I took on the subject is a jumble of journal articles mixed up in my head, plus a book focused on the May 4th Generation.
If you haven't already found some of them, here's three places I use for a quick reference:
China is a favourite topic of mine, so I'm always on the lookout for more (quality) sources. :)
Do you have access to War At The Top Of the World by Eric Margolis? If so, what do you think of it?
I'd say there's truth in that. Children born in urban China have a lower mortality rate than in the US source[ China Wakes] (http://www.amazon.com/China-Wakes-Struggle-Rising-Power/dp/0679763937). Doctors and medicine aren't better, but access to doctors and hospitals are (further source re health care - I lived in Taiwan and China, and has bones set and an operation there).
Not sure if this really counts for "Modern China", but Red Dust: A Path Through China takes place in the 1980's. I haven't read it personally but it's gotten good reviews and is also on my list of books to read. Same with River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, which is set in the late 1990's.
I think nothing is the main answer, but don't know enough to call that an educated guess. Certainly India was never a real friend and more oriented towards the USSR than the US.
p.s. good book on the area: War at the Top of the World: The Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tibet, Revised Edition (I read the pre-revision version)
https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Lake-Vietnamese-Americans-Vietnam/dp/0316159190
A good book on 1889 is «Tiananmen Square ‘Massacre»’? The Power of Words vs. Silent Evidence»
https://www.amazon.com/Tiananmen-Massacre-Evidence-Disinformation-Humanity/dp/1494326590/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
The Ming Dynasty whilst having gunpowder didn't have quite the infrastructure and logistical prowess that the Qing has.
Hence the difference in being able to maintain an army to take on the Dzungar Mongols. According to:
https://www.amazon.com/China-Marches-West-Conquest-Central/dp/0674057430
Supply Depots and Magazines to help supply the army as well as the economic strength unavailable to Ming Dynasty comparatively contributed.
Chinese also demographically was able to expand west due to the Columbian Exchange which supplied the Chinese with Potatoes opened up much more of the steppe lands to Agriculture.
This combined with Military farms in the Western Frontiers increased the availability of nearby supplies and reduced the cost of transport due to closer proximity of farms to the army.
This is also combined with alliances with mongol tribes due to successful diplomacy.
LOL
ROFL
ROFLMAO
Have you ever read or heard of the book Out of Mao's Shadow? It's about the Communist state in China, and there's a chapter about this revolutionary girl who at first is very excited about the new Communist uprising. This is because bands of young people would basically go spread communism in the smaller villages. This basically happened by getting the villagers to realize, "hey, there are a lot of us, and not that many warlords." Then, naturally, these public executions would happen, and part of the sensation of spectacle would get attributed to how great communism was going to be.
Anyway, once China started going more Stalinist, the revolutionary girl (whose name I can't remember) ended up changing her mind and spoke out against the government. She ended up writing a manifesto in prison out of her blood because that was the only ink she had. On top of that, the Chinese government has/had a rather messed up way of letting the families of political prisoners know they had been executed. After months (years?) of this girl having no contact with her family, the government shoots her, tracks down her family, and makes them pay the cost of the bullet that killed their daughter. (The bullet less than a nickel.)
But anyway, at least the warlords got what was coming to them.
Actually, there is a lot of evidence to show that most of the decline in China's fertility rate was achieved before the one child policy went into effect (1979) as a result of public health campaigns in the 70s. It was a case of "too much, too late."
I can't find any online articles to source, but Philip Pan's excellent Out of Mao's Shadow has a whole chapter on the issue.
Yes because the growth in the recent decade was huge.https://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Revolution-Change-Chinese-Village/dp/1583671803
Yup, I am aware of Mao's achievements including the positive aspects of the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution.
You need to educate yourself beyond wikipedia buddy.
http://www.amazon.com/Maos-Great-Famine-Devastating-Catastrophe/dp/0802777686/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1297572951&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Ghosts-Maos-Secret-Famine/dp/0805056688/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1297573524&sr=1-1-spell
Also the anit-intellectual atmosphere in China is pretty well documented so I'm not sure what you're talking about it not being an honest desription
Lastly, you're really going to compare pre-industrial famines to ones in the modern agricultural era? Is it just a coincidence that the famines happened in an unparalleled scale in communist countries compared to the Capitalist ones that somehow managed to avoid them?
> Nothing you said precludes the US from acting as an aggressor in that war as a whole.
I never said the U.S. wasn't as a whole. So you took what I said out of context. And downvoting because you disagree is where the conversation ends. I recommend reading 10,000 Days of Thunder for an unbiased look at the actual history of the Vietnam War.
Not just reading what you like to hear and browsing Wikipedia. Also edited the first link and recommend "The 10,000 Day War" as well.
You say that now, but my organs are not being harvested for profits. There's not many people who wouldn't murder you for $7M in the circumstance that they would not be prosecuted.
Other countries involuntarily harvest organs from political prisoners and sell them. What makes you think that the profit motive is any less compelling in any country?
http://www.amazon.com/Bloody-Harvest-Organ-Harvesting-Practitioners/dp/0980887976
http://www.alternet.org/rss/breaking_news/866081/china_vows_to_slow_reliance_on_executed_inmates%27_organs
http://www.alternet.org/rss/breaking_news/101002/israel_admits_harvesting_palestinian_organs