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The Search for Modern China 1st Paperback Edition

by Jonathan D. Spence (Author)

4.5 217 ratings

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"A remarkable achievement...vivid...fluent, graceful.... A publishing event."―Boston Globe

In this widely acclaimed history of modern China, Jonathan Spence achieves a fine blend of narrative richness and efficiency. Praised as "a miracle of readability and scholarly authority," (Jonathan Mirsky) The Search for Modern China offers a matchless introduction to China's history.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Spence advocates democracy in China and presents contemporary views of its oppressive history, including Chiang Kai-Shek's fascist supporters and the bloodbath known as the Cultural Revolution. "A splendid achievement, this sweeping . . . epic chronicle compresses four centuries of political and social change into a sharply observant narrative," said PW . Photos.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA --The difficulty of finding a complete, one-volume history of China is no longer a problem with publication of this work, which covers Chinese history from the 16th-century Ming Dynasty to the 1989 "China Spring" demonstrations. The 200+ photographs and illustrations, many in color and previously unpublished, include historical notes that add understanding to the art and the stories illustrated. The text is written in an informative manner that will appeal to students; their lack of knowledge of Chinese history is forstalled by the comprehensive glossary that explains phrases, people, and events. High-school teachers will bless you for buying this well-researched volume.
-Dolores Steinhauer, Jefferson Sci-Tech, Alexandria, VA
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; 1st Paperback edition (January 1, 1991)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 912 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393307808
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393307801
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.22 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.3 x 1.9 x 9.3 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #354,142 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #39 in Asian History (Books)
- #454 in Chinese History (Books)
- #10,758 in Unknown

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4.5 217 ratings

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Yersin USA

Comprehensive and edifying

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2014

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Spence covers the centuries of China's last dynasty, the Qing (Ch'ing), the efforts to establish republican government, the warlord era, and the rise of the Communist movement.

The combination of narrative and analysis reminds me of the volumes in the Oxford History of the United States series. Spence provides not only a comprehensive account of historic events, but he pauses at each juncture to introduce us to prominent individuals and explain how events were experienced by peasants, merchants, warlords, officials, and reformers.

9 people found this helpful

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A. Stadnyk

Great book!

Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2018

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Very interesting book. If you want to learn about history of china since the end of Ming dynasty, this book is excellent. Very well written, even though it is a test book, it is still read as novel. I'm still reading it and enjoying it 100 percent

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Joanne

If you're interested in how China became China, this is the book to read

Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2013

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I'm learning Chinese and have a shelf full of books about China which I've recently been plowing through. One of the book I read was "The Death of Woman Wang," by Jonathan D. Spence, the author of "The Search for Modern China." I checked the book out of the library, and was so impressed by it that I decided to buy it and absorb it at my own speed, not the reading speed imposed by the library due date. This is a richly researched book. Since China is one of the world's oldest civilizations, the search for modern begins in the 1600's. This is not an easy read, but it's worth the effort if you're interested in China.

2 people found this helpful

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Christopher Tricarick

Far better than others in its category!

Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2009

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So many people have said generally true and good things about this book that it would be foolish for me to repeat it all here. When I was living in China in a place where I had no access to English books I asked a friend to send me books about China, and I got three "survey" type books--two were quite superficial and one was extremely eccentric. Compared to them this is the gold standard. It is still a survey, with all the faults of the genre, and a very-indepth survey which sometimes seems to ask for complaints from both sides: too much information about something that doesn't interest you and not enough information about what does. And I agree: although the book is divided into three almost equal parts, covering respectively the whole Ch'ing dynasty, the ROC period, and the People's Republic, in the last third, despite having the smallest amount of time to cover, he does seem to skip lightly over things like the cultural revolution that should have recieved more detailed attention. But I suppose the Cultural Revolution was a little world in itself--to do it justice as a topic would have required a seperate book.

Important note: the first and second editions differ substantially. I read the first, which was written shortly after the Tiananmen Square massacre, and I think this distorts the perspective a bit. The last section of the book is all written as a prelude to that event, and that event ends the book, with an ominous note that the CCP may not be able to control the country much longer. The event is described in tremendous detail, and a whole section of photographs is devoted to it. I was a high school student in 1989, and I remember very well how huge the event seemed to us at the time--and in fact was. But from the perspective of today all of this seems quite off-balance. Therefore I would very much recommend the first edition if you are interested in Tiananmen Square: as a document of that event and the way it was viewed from abroad, it is valuable. But if you are looking for a more balanced view of the modern period I imagine the second edition would be better. Having said that, I get the impression that the first two-thirds of this book are really where its strengths lie.

12 people found this helpful

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Jaglean

Well-Crafted, comprehensive and accessible

Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2006

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Probably the most useful, one-volume history of Ming and post-Ming China. Well crafted with appropriate profiles of many of the leading players.

Helpful in understanding current China's many internal (and external)issues. Place your bets on whether China's communism collapses first or whether they attack the U.S. first...

As may be the case, a terrific history and vital to understanding a county still looking over its shoulder at the effects of Western and Japanese imperialism.

10 people found this helpful

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Beca

College book

Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2020

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Ok college book for class

One person found this helpful

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wmitchell

A coherent history

Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2012

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Here are a couple points to keep in mind.

1) China is roughly the same size as the US
2) China had civilization before the US

1 + 2 = china has more history than the US

how do you make sense of it though, and I think that's where this book tries to help you out.
each chapter has an overview with some pics and then gets into details.

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Will

Incredible wealth of knowledge. Spence's writing is impeccably clear ...

Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2017

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Incredible wealth of knowledge. Spence's writing is impeccably clear and never dry. He doesn't provide much narrative but it's understandable due to the sheer amount of material he covers.

4 people found this helpful

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+Peter Coffin

Magnificent! A joy to read!

Reviewed in Canada on January 14, 2021

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For those of us interested in China but intimidated with the scope of such a long and complicated history this was a treat. Of course it was about the development of modern China and limited from the Ming Dynasty on but it seemed nevertheless like a hefty tome. It is obviously fine scholarship, of course, but also so well written that one could not keep from being entranced by the flow of events and people. Inasmuch, as a Westerner, I lost track of Chinese names the list of 'dramatis personae' at the back of the text had a perpetual bookmark to which I perpetually preferred. This and the detailed notes made this magnificent book a more accessible and incredibly important history .

crawler54

Search for modern china novel

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 1, 2020

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a fine product, fit for purpose and excellent delivery service. Thank you Amazon.

Lorenzo

Ottimo

Reviewed in Italy on September 10, 2019

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Completo, dettagliato senza essere pignolo, di agevole lettura

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Leticia Alexandre

Excellent book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 13, 2019

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Fun and comprehensive.

reader 451

The reference on modern China

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 12, 2012

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The Search for Modern China is the work everyone recommends on modern Chinese history, written by a prominent academic and sinologist yet aimed at the general public, detailed enough at 700+ pages yet hugely ambitious in dealing with four hundred years' worth of Chinese events. Essentially a political history, the book moreover weaves in cultural and economic observations and data. This also has more coherence than volumes such as the Cambridge series, which are the work of multiple contributors.

It is worth noting that Spence is better known in academia for his cultural work, such as on Matteo Ricci's mission or the seventeenth-century woman Wang. The Search for Modern China keeps in certain respects to this mould, taking for premise the quest for modernity, and this casts a certain light on the narrative. Thus while modernity itself was a Western concept, seventeenth-century China was in some ways just as modern, or more so, than any Western model - e.g. its meritocratic administration. One wonders whether Spence may have overstated the importance of interaction with Europe, especially in the earlier years, and the extent to which modernity was necessarily an import. To take a more specific example, the all-important revolution of 1911-12 seems to have been a Chinese against Manchu uprising as much as a lurch into political modernisation. The Rise of Modern China may underplay the continuity and tenacity of hostility to a dynasty perceived as foreign: the success of revolution of 1912, indeed, is difficult to understand based on the information provided in the preceding chapters. A related problem is perhaps that Spence grants far fewer pages to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries than to the rest - surprisingly for an early modernist. Half of the book takes place after the Long March of 1935.

As the author hints in the introduction, this also remains in some ways a work in progress. The sources, one senses, simply remain quite imperfect. This seems to have led Spence to rely on official history, especially on communist China. Much detail is invested, for example, in socialist reforms that all sound the same, and in the minutia of administrative change and counter-change. Meanwhile, the Great Leap Forward, probably one of the great world tragedies of the twentieth century, is discussed over four pages, and why it backfired so badly is not made clear. The economic picture also remains reliant on examples drawn from party politics and their sterile, or counter-productive, debates. How collectivisation affected everyday life and work could have been made more explicit without adding to the book's length. At the same time, that much modern Chinese history can continue to be shrouded in obscurity or controversy illustrates how fascinating a subject this remains. The objections raised here are, moreover, but minor quibbles, and while The Search is not stylistically quite up to Spence's other works, it makes for gripping reading. This is an engrossing history, and the food for much reflection on China both past and contemporary.

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