Jeanne-Marie Gescher, a highly-respected China observer who has lived in Beijing since 1989, argues that China’s importance really lies in a 5,000 year question about order: is order only to be found under a single top-down ruler or does it depend on the voices of human beings? And if the latter, what ‘kind’ of human beings are required?
Weaving together the inspirations, ideas, wars and dreams that have shaped the way China’s people have thought about order from the ancient past to the recent present, Gescher reveals a story of China as an epic and continuing battle about order that strikes at the heart of what it means to be Chinese.
With the past in perspective, the clashes between China’s people and the Party come to life as never before – and the importance of China’s question becomes clear for everything, including economics.
In a thought-provoking conclusion, Gescher invites readers to make their own, informed, views about how order might be found in China – and then to take one step further and apply China’s question to the wider world.
"For the first time, a history of China that tells you why it thinks and acts the way it does." -- Richard Spencer, former China bureau chief, Daily Telegraph
"This changes the conversation. An extraordinary book." -- Tim Clissold, best-selling author of Mr. China