Wealth and Power
China's Long March to the Twenty-first Century
Published on 16. July 2013
Book
Paperback/Softback
496 pages
978-1-4087-0497-4 (ISBN)
Description
By now everyone knows the basic facts of China's rise to pre-eminence over the past three decades. But how did this erstwhile sleeping giant finally manage to arrive at its current phase of dynamic growth? How, after such a long and painful period of dynastic decline, intellectual upheaval and revolution, foreign occupation and civil war, did a country once derided as the 'sick man of Asia' manage to break out of its old pattern of repeatedly failed reform efforts to burst forth onto the world stage with such an impressive run of hyperdevelopment and wealth creation? How did the century-long succession of failures to change somehow culminate in the extraordinary dynamism of China today?
By examining the lives of eleven influential officials, writers, activists, and leaders whose contributions helped create modern China, Wealth and Power addresses these questions. This fascinating survey begins in the lead-up to the first Opium War with Wei Yuan, the nineteenth-century scholar and reformer who was one of the first to urge China to borrow ideas from the West. It concludes in our time with human-rights advocate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, an outspoken opponent of single-party rule. Along the way, we meet titans of Chinese history, intellectuals and political figures.
By unwrapping the intellectual antecedents of today's resurgent China, Orville Schell and John Delury supply much-needed insight into the country's tortured progression from nineteenth-century decline to twenty-first-century boom. By looking backward into the past to understand forces at work for hundreds of years, they help us understand China today and the future that this singular country is helping shape for all of us.
By examining the lives of eleven influential officials, writers, activists, and leaders whose contributions helped create modern China, Wealth and Power addresses these questions. This fascinating survey begins in the lead-up to the first Opium War with Wei Yuan, the nineteenth-century scholar and reformer who was one of the first to urge China to borrow ideas from the West. It concludes in our time with human-rights advocate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, an outspoken opponent of single-party rule. Along the way, we meet titans of Chinese history, intellectuals and political figures.
By unwrapping the intellectual antecedents of today's resurgent China, Orville Schell and John Delury supply much-needed insight into the country's tortured progression from nineteenth-century decline to twenty-first-century boom. By looking backward into the past to understand forces at work for hundreds of years, they help us understand China today and the future that this singular country is helping shape for all of us.
Reviews / Votes
Wealth and Power offers everything readers might expect from its two eminent authors. It is both sweeping and specific, authoritative and lively, sympathetic and critical, offering the perspective of both the hedgehog and the fox. The hardest challenge in writing about China, or finding things to read about it, is perceiving significant patterns while remaining aware of the chaos and contradictions. Orville Schell and John Delury meet that challenge in exemplary form. I only wish that they'd written the book years ago, so that (along with other readers) I could have been taking advantage of its insights all along * James Fallows, national correspondent, The Atlantic * A brilliantly original and essential book: the road map to China's quest for national salvation. This is a story of ideas and the vibrant figures who shaped them: rebels, thinkers, and rivals, united by the quest for reinvention. It is required reading for anyone seeking to understand China's motives and the future of global competition, and is, quite simply, a pleasure to read. Vivid, literate, and brimming with insights, Wealth and Power deserves to become a classic * Evan Osnos, staff writer, The New Yorker * In Wealth and Power, their crisp and comprehensive introduction to the history of modern China, historians Orville Schell and John Delury present us with the historical background we need to understand the driving mechanism that lies at the center of China today. By no longer presenting China's past two centuries as a record of recurrent failures and humiliations, they give us a portrait of a nation in the making, and of leaders with the skills and determination to redirect China's energies on a global scale. The change of perspective is valuable and challenging * Jonathan D. Spence, author of The Search for Modern China *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Little, Brown Book Group
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Illustrations
Integrated photos
Dimensions
Height: 153 mm
Width: 233 mm
Thickness: 37 mm
Weight
658 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4087-0497-4 (9781408704974)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
07/2013
Little, Brown Book Group
€3.99
Available for download
Persons
Orville Schell, author of more than a dozen books, studied Chinese history at Harvard and Berkeley and has written for many publications, including The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Time, Foreign Affairs, The New York Review of Books, Harper's, and The New York Times. Formerly the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, he is currently the Arthur Ross Director of the Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations in New York City.
John Delury received his Ph.D. in modern Chinese history at Yale University, where he wrote his dissertation on the Ming-Qing Confucian scholar Gu Yanwu. He taught at Brown, Columbia, and Peking University, and was associate director of Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations. He is currently an assistant professor of East Asian studies at Yonsei University in Seoul.
John Delury received his Ph.D. in modern Chinese history at Yale University, where he wrote his dissertation on the Ming-Qing Confucian scholar Gu Yanwu. He taught at Brown, Columbia, and Peking University, and was associate director of Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations. He is currently an assistant professor of East Asian studies at Yonsei University in Seoul.