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    China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, 3rd Edition
    China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, 3rd Edition
    China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, 3rd Edition
    Audiobook5 hours

    China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, 3rd Edition

    Written by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom and Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

    Narrated by Joe Barrett

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In this fully revised and updated third edition of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know®, Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom and Maura Elizabeth Cunningham provide cogent answers to urgent questions regarding the world's newest superpower and offer a framework for understanding China's meteoric rise from developing country to superpower. Framing their answers through the historical legacies-Confucian thought, Western and Japanese imperialism, the Mao era, and the Tiananmen Square massacre-that largely define China's present-day trajectory, Wasserstrom and Cunningham introduce listeners to the Chinese Communist Party, the building boom in Shanghai, and the environmental fallout of rapid Chinese industrialization. They also explain unique aspects of Chinese culture, such as the one-child policy, and provide insight into Chinese-American relations, a subject that has become increasingly fraught during the Trump era. As Wasserstrom and Cunningham draw parallels between China and other industrialized nations during their periods of development, in particular the United States during its rapid industrialization in the 19th century, they also predict how we might expect China to act in the future vis-à-vis the United States, Russia, India, and its East Asian neighbors.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateDec 28, 2018
    ISBN9781684415816
    China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, 3rd Edition

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    Reviews for China in the 21st Century

    4/5

    32 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Up to date (as of 2018), this primer is organized in terms of broadly themed chapters that consist of question-answer form snippets. Though not a substitute for a modern history, there is a lot of information that is helpful in making sense of current events and concerns within a broader cultural and historical context so sorely missing from media coverage of this country. Rana Mitter's Very Short Introduction to Modern China (available here, I believe) makes a fine complement to this offering. It is one of the better recent histories of modern China written for a general readership.
    • 4/5
      excellent overview of chinese history. well written and an easy read.
    • 4/5
      A very sympathetic summary of China for an American readership.
    • 5/5
      This book is an excellent primer on modern China - but when I say "primer", I don't mean to imply that that it is simply a "noddy" guide. On the contrary, the author has a real talent for making some quite subtle and sophisticated points in a very striking but concise manner. To take just one example: when talking about China's approach to governance, he notes that there is a tendency in the West to seize on the authoritarian aspects, leading people to think of China in terms of George Orwell's "1984", with its depiction of "the boot in the face"-style totalitarianism. But whilst the author acknowledges that there are certainly elements of that in the post-Mao era (not least the Tiananmen Square massacre), he suggests that overall, Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" may offer a better analogy, with its focus on catering to the needs of the masses with a view to ensuring that they aren't inclined to bother their heads about things like democracy. Consider, for instance, how China's government has quite deliberately focussed on the kind of economic reform that the old Soviet Union never managed and which probably led to its collapse (because its particular brand of "boot in the face" style totalitarianism was accompanied by an economic system which could only turn out millions of left-footed boots).

      There are some slightly sniffy comments in some of the other reviews here about how this book is not particularly detailed and uses an FAQ style to break up the content into more manageable chunks. And if you are the kind of person that is impressed by length, this clearly isn't going to be the book for you - go read Martin Jacques' thumping great muddle-headed tome about China instead. If, on the other hand, you want to read a book that will make you look at China differently and which frequently acknowledges that there are two or more possible views about any one issue, then I can't recommend this book highly enough. For me, its brevity was an asset, not a liability.
    • 5/5
      I was born ten years after WWII, and Britain was still riven with xenophobia. I soon realised how foolish this attitude was and, have striven to have an open mind to all foreign cultures but, the taint of suspicion still clings to truly alien cultures such as the Chinese. This excellent little book firstly reassures us of the fact that Chinese people are not strange two headed creatures from the far side of the solar system; they are normal human beings, like you and me.The book explains Chinese history and ideology in simple, but not demeaning terms and, whilst there is little that the average reader will find truly new and unexpected, the book hangs the story together well. It should be mentioned that it is written by an American author and so, naturally, the slant is towards an American view of China but, this does not spoil the read for a British audience: and believe me, our cousins across the pond do not escape my opprobrium when I feel that they are hiding from a world perspective! Whatever your current understanding of China, this little book - it is only 148 pages, excluding notes and suggested further reading - is well worth reading.
    • 4/5
      Hmm, in general a good idea, but not so thorough execution. It has a chapter on philosophical schools, but it only speaks of Confucianism; it has a chapter on history, but it only speaks of rebellions... It's just not as cohesive as it might be. Then again, I did find a couple of interesting questions and answers from the book...
    • 4/5
      In this book Wasserstrom asks and answers a series of questions about China. There are two parts to the book: historical legacies and the present and future with three chapters in each. The book is a quick read and his sections are quite brief. This allows him to compress a lot of information into his book but means that much is left unsaid. There is a bibliography of suggested reading at the back which is helpful.Although Wasserstrom occasionally goes against conventional thinking regarding China most of his analysis is accurate. This is a good brief introduction but those with a deeper interest in the fuller picture will want to seek additional sources.