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Highlighting the interwoven relationship between Chinese rural society and larger historical forces, this book charts the evolution of China’s rural society from 1901 to 1949, concentrating on the major changes of this period and the scenarios developed to modernize rural society during the half century leading up to the Revolution. The modern history of rural China is one of sweeping institutional and structural transformation across many dimensions. As the first half of the twentieth century...

Pakistan and China enjoy exemplary friendly ties, which have been expanding and becoming even deeper with time. China's main geopolitical focus in South Asia is to restrain India as a competitor by using Pakistan as a proxy. China's growing economic and security relation with Pakistan, and the unholy nexus between the two, remains a major worry for India as the growing Chinese involvement is bound to erode India's influence in the region. Another area of concern has been the lack of credible Ind...

Reflecting on over half a century of study on Chinese culture, Jordan Paper explores new ways of approaching religion in China. Moving away from using Christianity as a model for examination, which has led to considerable misunderstandings between China and the West, Paper instead applies the paradigm of Familism to Chinese religion. By looking through the lens of Familism, which emphasises the importance of the family unit, Paper argues that we can understand the basis of Chinese culture, socie...

The I Ching, or Book of Changes, a common source for both Confucianist and Taoist philosophy, is one of the first efforts of the human mind to place itself within the universe. It has exerted a living influence in China for 3,000 years, and interest in it has been rapidly spreading in the West.

Winner of the 2012 Society for Military History Distinguished Book Award (non-US). Most studies of the Sino-Japanese War are presented from the perspective of the West. Departing from this tradition, The Battle for China brings together Chinese, Japanese, and Western scholars to provide a comprehensive and multifaceted overview of the military operations that shaped much of what happened in political, economic, and cultural realms. The volume's diverse contributors have taken pains to sustain...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE DUFF COOPER PRIZE 2021 / BANFF MOUNTAIN BOOK AWARDS SPECIAL JURY MENTION 2020This is the first major history of the Himalaya: an epic story of peoples, cultures and adventures among the world's highest mountains.Spanning millennia, from its earliest inhabitants to the present conflicts over Tibet and Everest, Himalaya is a soaring account of resilience and conquest, discovery and plunder, oppression and enlightenment at the 'roof of the world'.From all around the globe, the u...

Commercial aviation took shape in Hong Kong as the city developed into a powerful economy. Rather than accepting air travel as an inevitability in the era of global mobility, John Wong argues that Hong Kong's development into a regional and global airline hub was not preordained. By underscoring the shifting process through which this hub emerged, Hong Kong Takes Flight aims to describe globalization and global networks in the making. Viewing the globalization of the city through the prism of it...

China's spectacular economic growth over the past two decades has dramatically depleted the country's natural resources and produced skyrocketing rates of pollution. Environmental degradation in China has also contributed to significant public health problems, mass migration, economic loss, and social unrest. In The River Runs Black, Elizabeth C. Economy examines China's growing environmental crisis and its implications for the country's future development. Drawing on historical research, case...

Mao Zedong was one of the most important figures of the twentieth century, the most important in the history of modern China. This revelatory new biography draws on thousands of Russian documents about Mao and other Chinese leaders that have not been seen before. Pantsov and Levine trace Mao's rise to leadership from the small village where he was born and show his relentless drive to succeed, vividly describing his growing role in the nascent Communist party of China. They disclose startling fa...

Decades of revolution and turmoil in China, along with unprecedented economic growth since the early 1990s, have had disastrous consequences for Beijing, one of the oldest and greatest capital cities in the world. In Rehabilitating the Old City of Beijing, renowned academic, architect, and urban planner Wu Liangyong argues eloquently for "organic renewal," in which the drive to raze the old city and build a new one is tempered by a respect for local and historical identity, using the project in...