Customer Reviews

Search For Modern China

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This textbook is the perfect introduction for students interested in an overview of modern Chinese history and a valuable reference for scholars already immersed in the subject. Drawing on his many years of teaching the survey course at Yale on Chinese history, Spence covers the major events and themes of the past four hundred years with scholarly thoroughness and a light literary hand. Although the amount of material is daunting - even Spence doesn't use it all in his course- Search for Modern China is written to be accessible to the layperson as well as the academic. Highly recommended for anyone interested in China today.

I have diligently read Spence's book and confess that it reads well and certainly is a good introductory book on modern Chinese history. Yet the book is also fraught with mistakes that are sometimes glaring, such as the Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689 which Spence claims fixed the borders between Russia and China pretty much along the present existing borders. He neglects to mention that the treaty, denied access to the Russians the entire Amur valley and that by virtue of that treaty Sakhalin was off-limits to Russia until the 19th century. Chinese historical sources are conveniently ignored so that he may advance his politically correct western historian's view of China. Later in the book he glosses over the Rape of Nanking using data from the 1930's claiming that only 40,000 people were killed when newer sources of information are not only available but refute the older figures. If this book is going to be a standard text for students of modern Chinese history, then it needs a thorough review and edit to correct these mistakes.

Very well write history of China from Qin (Ching) to the 1980s/90s. It gives you quite comprehensive and relatively detailed information. Easy to read.

When I started studying Chinese, I wanted a book that would give me some background on Chinese history. I asked several experts in Chinese history, and they recommended this book. I'm grateful they did.

Though long, it held my interest throughout. After all, no matter how good a history book is, if you don't read it, you won't learn a thing.

Though it sometimes goes off on tangents that seem a bit superfluous, overall it's a tightly written book that will really help you explore an interest in Chinese history.

This apparently is a reprint of the 1st ed., I don't know of any reason to prefer it over the 2nd ed.

J. Spence is simply awesome. I haven't found a book by him i didn't really like, a lot. His writing is clear, well documented, interesting-yes interesting in a history textbook. Amazing. The book will grab your attention from the first page and hold it until the last. If you have any interest in China, and have a few evenings to devote to it, there is no better, imho, introduction to modern Chinese history available in English. Thanks J.S. now i have to find another book by him to read *grin*, never thought i'd finish this volume.

Studying Chinese culture and history for one of my majors, the other being political science, I have found that this book is a very through and cogent analysis of the modern Chinese political situation. I would reccomend this book to anyone wishing to understand the perspective of China's political leadership and also its people.

This is probably the most accessible history of modern China written so far. Jonathan Spence, a Yale professor of history, has written extensively on Chinese history and his insights into the culture and people are invaluable.

Overall the reader is presented with a picture of the nature of change in Chinese civilization and how those changes are sometimes culture specific. Chinese intellectual, political and social organizations are presented. Importantly Spence shows the difficulty in incorporating Western concepts both technological and philisophical into Chinese society and the sometime rejection of these concepts for political and cultural reasons.

Spence's scholarship is second to none and this is a very readable history, both enjoyable and informative. No better praise can be given than besides a college text on Chinese history "The Search For Modern China" is just as well suited as an informative and entertaining read for the layperson. The integration of scholarship and writing makes this a good standard to judge other general histories.

I enjoyed this book for several reasons. The writing is excellent. It does not read like dry history. The author starts with the fall of the Ming dynasty. This is an excellent choice. By starting here, the reader better understands why China views the west it does. This places current events more in historical perspective. I also liked the author making value judgments about various historical figures and events. I am sure these value judgments will provoke controversy by the academic community. Spence does a good job of showing that the Communist revolution was more than a cult of Mao. Others were involved and Mao had his limits of power. This book is an excellent choice for someone who knows little about Chinese history but wants a quick survey of recent history.

As for weaknesses, I thought the coverage of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution was weak. The horror of these two events is discussed too dispassionately. If readers have no previous knowledge of these two events, it is hard from this text to understand the nature of the true tragedy.

As a disclaimer, I am not a scholar of Chinese history. I had only read a few books and have had no academic courses in Chinese history

For anyone interested in contemporary China, this books provides the necessary historical backdrop in great and well reasoned detail. In my reading, Spence explains better than anyone why the Chinese currently prefer stability over democracy and why the country has made a slow and halting entry into the modern world. While making no excuses for the excesses of the Party's leadership, Spence chronicles the immense change that Mao and his successors initiated, not from the standpoint of solely the 20th Century, but over the last 300 years. If you are looking for a single book that provides a 360° view of the evolution of this ancient and complex civilisation, this is the book for you. Spence is also a master of eloquent and concise prose, refreshingly un-academic in tone and yet a brilliant synthesis of contemporary research.