Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the Present

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Название: Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the Present

Автор: Jonathan Fenby

Издательство: Ecco

Год: 2008

ISBN: 0061661163

Формат: PDF

Размер: 15 MB

Язык: English

Страниц: 835

No country on earth has suffered a more bitter history in modern times than China. In the second half of the nineteenth century, it was viewed as doomed to extinction. Its imperial rulers, heading an anachronistic regime, were brought low by enormous revolts, shifting social power patterns, republican revolutionaries, Western incursions to "split the Chinese melon" and a disastrous defeat by Japan. In the early twentieth century, the empire was succeeded by warlordism on a massive scale, internal divisions, incompetent rule, savage fighting between the government and the Communists, and a fourteen-year invasion from Japan. Four years of civil war after 1945 led to the Maoist era, with its purges and repression; the disastrous Great Leap Forward; a famine that killed tens of millions; and the Cultural Revolution.

Understanding how that transformation came about and what China constitutes today means understanding its epic journey since 1850 and recognizing how the past influences the present.