This is a fantastic summary of Chinese History. I don't think there is a better more succinct quick read out there. I would love to see Prof. Wasserstrom updated version. ( )

Recommended by AP Comp teachers

A very sympathetic summary of China for an American readership. ( )

This was a very good introduction to the country of China. If you all you know about China is that they are Communists and big, then you really need to read this book. The author delivers on a big challenge: presenting a primer on Chinese history and culture that is accessible and concise. I think he achieves that pretty well. You get the key points of Chinese culture and history, and you will certainly feel like you learned something by the end of the book. The strength of the book lies in the fact that the author clearly strives to be objective. The best part, for me at least, is when he goes over the similarities between the United States and China. He is basically showing readers that while the nations are different, they also have many things in common. This book is definitely a must-read if you want to learn more on this topic. And given China's ascendancy in the world, what we may hear in the news (truth or speculation), this book goes a long way to put things in context.

Oxford so far is doing a good job in this series. The one on Cuba I read (which is reviewed here on GR too) is also excellent. These are books that as a librarian I would not hesitate to recommend to readers wanting to learn more on a topic. ( )

This review originally appeared on goodreads (so when I refer to "the other reviews here", I'm referring to goodreads, not LibraryThing reviews):

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. ( )