Synopses & Reviews
China is a country of many faces, and this book attempts to capture as many of them as possible. The book moves from the great cities of Shanghai and Beijing in the east to the natural wonders of Tibet and Yunnan in the west, capturing on film the grandeur of Tiananmen Square and the power and beauty of a remote Chinese fishing village. The text keeps pace with the photographs, giving the reader an introduction to Chinese history, culture, art, and language. Johnny Erling is as insightful in his explanation of the building of the Great Wall as he is in his explication of the tenets of Confucianism.
About the Author
Fritz Dressler is Professor at the Institute for Culture and Music in Bremen, Germany. Kai Ulrich Muller , a scholar in architecture from Berlin, specializes in travel photography. Johnny Erling , formerly a newspaper correspondent in China, lives in Wuhan, China.
Table of Contents
A Journey of Images [*] Beijing [*] The Great Wall at Harbin [*] In Shanghai and Hainan [*] Guangxi Autonomous Reigon [*] Yunnan Province [*] The Vast Expanse of the West [*] China: So Foreign and So Familiar [*] The Harmony of Heaven and Earth [*] The Times of Change [*] The Great Wall [*] The Danwei: The Important Organizational Unit [*] A Civilization in a Vacuum [*] Nature: The Permanent Challenge [*] Confucius and the Doctrine of the State [*] The Ancestral Civilization [*] The Confucian State [*] Confrontation with the West [*] The Passing of the Seasons: Chinese Holidays [*] The Control of Water [*] China on the Edge of the 21st Century [*] Geography, History, Culture [*] Geography [*] Constitution and Political Status [*] Important Dates in Chinese History [*] Economy [*] China, An Agricultural Nation [*] Population and Language [*] Religion [*] Flora and Fauna [*] The Administrative Regions [*] The Different Provinces [*] A Difficult Language, an Artistic Calligraphy [*] Autonomous Regions [*] Municipalities with Special Status [*] Beijing, A Forbidden City [*] Natural Sites, Villages, and Mountainous Regions From A to Z [*] General Map [*] Index [*] Photo Credits and Text Citations