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Title details for Great State by Timothy Brook - Available

Great State

by Timothy Brook
ebook
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The author of Vermeer's Hat shares "a dizzying and exhilarating journey" through 800 years of Chinese history and national identity (New Statesman).
China is one of the oldest states in the world. It achieved its approximate borders with the Ascendancy of the Yuan dynasty in the thirteenth century and has maintained them ever since—through the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Republic, the Occupation, and Communism. Yet China has never been alone in the world. It has had to contend with invaders as well as foreign traders and imperialists. Its rulers for the majority of the last eight centuries have not been Chinese.
China became a mega-state not by conquering others, Timothy Brook contends, but rather by being conquered by others and then claiming right of succession to the empires of those Great States. What the Mongols and Manchu ruling families wrought, the Chinese ruling families of the Ming, the Republic, and the People's Republic, have perpetuated. Yet the idea of a naturally Chinese 'fatherland' persists to this day.
In The Great State, Brook examines China's relationship with the world at large for the first time, from the Yuan through to the present, by following the stories of ordinary and extraordinary people navigating the spaces where China met, and continues to meet, the world.
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Publisher: HarperCollins

Kindle Book

  • Release date: March 19, 2024

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9780062951007
  • Release date: March 19, 2024

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9780062951007
  • File size: 39394 KB
  • Release date: March 19, 2024
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Formats

Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

History Politics Nonfiction

Languages

English

The author of Vermeer's Hat shares "a dizzying and exhilarating journey" through 800 years of Chinese history and national identity (New Statesman).
China is one of the oldest states in the world. It achieved its approximate borders with the Ascendancy of the Yuan dynasty in the thirteenth century and has maintained them ever since—through the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Republic, the Occupation, and Communism. Yet China has never been alone in the world. It has had to contend with invaders as well as foreign traders and imperialists. Its rulers for the majority of the last eight centuries have not been Chinese.
China became a mega-state not by conquering others, Timothy Brook contends, but rather by being conquered by others and then claiming right of succession to the empires of those Great States. What the Mongols and Manchu ruling families wrought, the Chinese ruling families of the Ming, the Republic, and the People's Republic, have perpetuated. Yet the idea of a naturally Chinese 'fatherland' persists to this day.
In The Great State, Brook examines China's relationship with the world at large for the first time, from the Yuan through to the present, by following the stories of ordinary and extraordinary people navigating the spaces where China met, and continues to meet, the world.
Expand title description text
History Politics Nonfiction
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