China, a Macrohistory

The author of the higly acclaimed 1587, A Year of No Significance has taken a fresh look at the full sweep of Chinese history from neolithic times to the present. His view stems from a belief that far from a simple reform, what is happening in China today is the latest step in a major restructuring of a huge nation. To attain the proper perspective, the observer must push the baseline of Chinese history back at least four or five centuries. Moreover, the history of the modern West must similarly be rolled back for comparison. Only then will the vision of macro-history enable the reader to perceive the logic and consistency of often seeming ly idiosyncratic and isolated events that punctuate the evolution of the major and minor dynasties. By no means random oscillations towards extremes, these events — from the reforms of Wang Mang to the reforms of Wang Anshi, from the May Fourth Movement of 1919 to the Tiananmen Incident of 1989 — inform the universal pattern of macrohistory in interesting and logical ways. Professor Huang marshals these episodes in Chinese history to explain his challenging and absorbing thesis and brings the reader to a new perception of the way in which Chinese history is evolving. He also convincingly argues that Chinese history for the first time is merging in full force with the major currents of Western civilization.

Provocative, insightful, and displaying an extraordinary knowledge of the subject, Ray Huang has written a higly readable account of the panorana of Chinese history that will challenge and fascinate scholar and layperson alike. There is no other book like it.

"Huang's macro-history...builds a structure of novel interpretation and vivid anecdote on a solid base of original research...a freshly written synthesis that will be read with pleasure and profit to all." Andrew J Nathan, Professor of Political Science, Columbia University, in Library Journal