The Briefing Room
General Category => Sports/Entertainment/MSM/Social Media => Books and Authors => Topic started by: PeteS in CA on February 01, 2021, 09:28:01 pm
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J. A. G. Roberts' A History of China is a pretty plain vanilla book of history. It's pretty well done for fitting 3500-4000 years of history into 327 pages. It's treatment of Mao is kinder than I liked - balance, not outright omissions - but for all its brutality in the 50s and early 60s, Mao & Co did get China off its ass economically (with substantial equipment, blueprints, and technical people aid from the USSR - Roberts says that it was probably the most extensive technology transfer in history).
A couple things I found interesting:
* Basically the core of China is the central area, less the ethnic "Autonomous Zones"; during most of imperial China those "Autonomous Zones" were peopled by non-Han Chinese ethnic groups who variously plagued or were partially dominated by the various imperial dynasties;
* From the 13th Century on, only one of the three ruling dynasties was Han Chinese, the Ming Dynasty, which ended in the 17th Century. The final dynasty, the Qing, was Manchu (the NE area near Korea).
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J. A. G. Roberts' A History of China is a pretty plain vanilla book of history. It's pretty well done for fitting 3500-4000 years of history into 327 pages. It's treatment of Mao is kinder than I liked - balance, not outright omissions - but for all its brutality in the 50s and early 60s, Mao & Co did get China off its ass economically (with substantial equipment, blueprints, and technical people aid from the USSR - Roberts says that it was probably the most extensive technology transfer in history).
A couple things I found interesting:
* Basically the core of China is the central area, less the ethnic "Autonomous Zones"; during most of imperial China those "Autonomous Zones" were peopled by non-Han Chinese ethnic groups who variously plagued or were partially dominated by the various imperial dynasties;
* From the 13th Century on, only one of the three ruling dynasties was Han Chinese, the Ming Dynasty, which ended in the 17th Century. The final dynasty, the Qin, was Manchu (the NE area near Korea).
I’ve actually heard of this book. I reserved the Durant version from my local library. This year I’m going to try to get through all of Durant and all of Churchill’s volumes.
I have all the time in the world on lockdown now...
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I’ve actually heard of this book. I reserved the Durant version from my local library. This year I’m going to try to get through all of Durant and all of Churchill’s volumes.
I have all the time in the world on lockdown now...
It's one of several History of ______ series for various nations. I should have noted above that the current revision is from 2011, pre-Xin Jingping.
Being in a hospital bed for two weeks gave me lots of time for reading. This was one of three books I finished, though I had started two before Covid.