Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Help me find a book on China

13:12 / 07.04.06

I'd like to know more about China - the modern country and how it's growing so fast and changing so quickly. However, I don't know much about the Cultural Revolution and the general history of China, so that would be useful information too. Is there such a useful, combined book?

22:59 / 07.04.06

I thought 'Walled Kingdom' by Witold Rodzinski covered the history of China very well, though i have read little concerning the subject to compare it to.

21:41 / 10.04.06

Normally, I'd point you toward a wiki I worked on that had Chinese history in nutshell summaries and a library -- but it's gone offline for now.

My favorite historical book is Ma Jian's Red Dust. It's historical in that it tells the story of the author roaming around China in the 80s (pre-Tiananmen, post-Mao), but also in that Ma refers to pretty much every major historical event, I think. Cultural Revolution and WWII are in there for sure.

That said, it's a memoir that's not trying to be anything other than that.

11:39 / 11.04.06

Thanks, grant, I was hoping you might see this. Maybe a memoir is the right sort of thing - I've just been in a bookshop looking at loads of history books and they're all a bit dry and worthy. I doubt I could make it through them.