China and Taiwan

A selection of books on China, Taiwan and Hong Kong

The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army

The British Museum Press 2007

ISBN 9780714124476

Hbk £40.00

LUXE Beijing

Luxe City Guides

(Fourth Edition)

ISBN 9789628935505

Pbk £4.99

LUXE Shanghai

Luxe City Guides

(Sixth Edition)

ISBN 9789628935499

Pbk £4.99

LUXE Hong Kong and Macau

Luxe City Guides

(Ninth Edition)

ISBN 9789628935512

Pbk £4.99

Green China

Heather Angel

Green China captures the glory of China's natural world through Heather Angel's breathtaking photographs, most were taken specifically for this book.  Over 300 images are coupled with an informed and engaging text to take the reader on a journey through a land of immense variety.  This, truly, is "Green China" - the largely untold story of China in the early twenty-first century

Stacey International 2008

ISBN 9781905299645

Hbk £20.95

The First Emperor of China

Jonathan Clements

The First Emperor of China is the first book outside Asia to tell the full story of the life, legends and laws of Ying Zheng: the man who unified China, built the Great Wall, and whose tomb is guarded by the famous Terracotta Army.  It exposes the intrigues and scandals of his family - his mother's plot to overthrow him, a revolt led by his stepfather, and the suspicious death of his half-brother - explores the immigration crisis that threatened to destroy his kingdom, and provides a terrifying glimpse of daily life in a land under absolute rule.

Sutton Publishing 2006

ISBN 0750939591

Hbk £18.99

The Imperial Capitals of China

Arthur Cotterell

Through the story of China's dynastic capitals, Cotterell presents a panoramic sweep of an empire that lasted over two millennia. Using original Chinese sources and eyewitness accounts he provides an inside view of the rich array of characters, political and technological genius that defined these cities; from their cosmological foundations to the politics of empire and cataclysmic civil wars.

Pimlico 2007

ISBN 9781845950101

Pbk £14.99

Mao's Great Famine

Frank Dikotter

Between 1958 and 1962, China descended into hell. Mao Zedong threw his country into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up and overtake Britain in less than 15 years. The experiment ended in the greatest catastrophe the country had ever known, destroying tens of millions of lives. Access to Communist Party archives has long been denied to all but the most loyal historians, but now a new law has opened up thousands of central and provincial documents that fundamentally change the way one can study the Maoist era. Frank Dikotter's astonishing, riveting and magnificently detailed book chronicles an era in Chinese history much speculated about but never before fully documented. Dikotter shows that instead of lifting the country among the world's superpowers and proving the power of communism, as Mao imagined, in reality the Great Leap Forward was a giant - and disastrous - step in the opposite direction. He demonstrates, as nobody has before, that under this initiative the country became the site not only of one of the most deadly mass killings of human history (at least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death) but also the greatest demolition of real estate - and catastrophe for the natural environment - in human history, as up to a third of all housing was turned to rubble and the land savaged in the maniacal pursuit of steel and other industrial accomplishments. Piecing together both the vicious machinations in the corridors of power and the everyday experiences of ordinary people, Dikotter at last gives voice to the dead and disenfranchised. Exhaustively researched and brilliantly written, this magisterial, groundbreaking account definitively recasts the history of the People's Republic of China.

Bloomsbury 2010

(Not Yet Published)

ISBN 9780747595083

Hbk £25.00

Lust, Caution

Chang Eileen

A passionate tale of lust and espionage set in 1940s Shanghai. A young woman spends her days playing mahjong and drinking tea with high society ladies, seemingly unperturbed by the invading Japanese forces. But Jiazhi's life is a front. As a patriotic student radical, her mission is to seduce a powerful employee of the occupying government and lead him to the assassin's bullet. Her role as a femme fatale however does not go according to plan as her own emotions begin to intercede.

Penguin Modern Classics 2007

ISBN 9780141034386

Pbk £7.99

Mao: The Unknown Story

Jung Chang & Jon Halliday

Based on a decade of research, and on interviews with many of Mao's close circle in China who have never talked before this is the most authoritative life of Mao ever written.  It is full of startling revelations, exploding the myth of the Long March, and showing a completely unknown Mao.  This is an entirely fresh look at Mao in both content and approach.  It will astonish historians and the general reader alike.

Vintage 2007

ISBN 0099507374

Pbk £10.99

Peking Story

David Kidd

In 1949 David Kidd's Chinese fiancée telephoned to say that her father was dying and that they must marry immediately. She was the daughter of an ancient Mandarin family living in a magnificent mansion surrounded by many courtyards. Her wedding in Peking was one of the last great ceremonies of a four thousand-year-old culture. At first the couple were able to continue their privileged life, a remnant of an old and exquisite culture. But Peking had recently surrendered to a communist army, and the new proletarianism was rapidly suppressing the ancient traditions. Spies watched them from the roof and then confiscated their sets of mahjong; an aunt was sent on a mission to re-educate prostitutes; and the family's final magnificent party was invaded by the police. Eventually their entire way of life was overwhelmed by the new totalitarian regime.

Eland 1961

ISBN 090787147x

Pbk £12.99

Xi'an: Shaanxi and the Terracotta Army

Paul Mooney et al

Situated in north central China. Xi'an is  ranked among the great historical centres of the world - it is China's Luxor.  From its early role in Chines civilization as the centre of the first empire from which "Qin" gave the West the concept of "China", this gateway to the fabled Silk Road also sparkledas the largest and most cosmopolitan city on Earth during the golden ages of the Han tnd the Tang.  This comprehensive guidebook leads the reader on a journey through this glorious ancient history to Xi'an's modern role as the administrative and educational gateway to China's vast northwest frontier.

Odyssey Books and Guides 2009

ISBN 9789622178007

Pbk £15.95

Brian Payton - In Bear Country

Nick Creagh-Osborne writes:

Eight beautifully written and humane travelogues describe the author's journeys around the world in search of bears.

In India he visits villagers living under the constant threat of attack from vicious, homicidal bears.  In China he witnesses the opposing demands of conservation and the market for bear bile in Chinese medicine, and similarly in Cambodia between conservation and people living in extreme poverty selling bears and bear parts to survive.  In Peru he visits a mountain world of shamans where bears are seen as linking the worlds of men and gods.  On home ground in Canada Payton drives with the Polar Bear Alert Program.  In Italy he visits a tenuous upland world where both shepherding and the bears themselves are all but extinct.  In France, in the Chauvet cave, he finds evidence of separate occupation by bears and humans over 30,000 years ago.  Finally, on the Colorado plateau he witnesses the hunting and slaughter of bears for sport, and in a moving conclusion the author performs a Navajo rite acknowledging and apologising for any wrong done in the five years of travel and research that it took to produce this fine, moving and deeply sensitive book.

2007

ISBN 1905847149

£8.99

Last Seen in Lhasa

Claire Scobie

Some go to Tibet seeking inspiration, others for adventure. The award-winning journalist, Claire Scobie, found both when she left her ordinary life in London and went to the Himalayas in search of a rare red lily. Her journey took her to Pemako, where few Westerners have set foot and where the myth of Shangri-la was born. It was here she became friends with Ani, an unusual Tibetan nun who was to change her life. Through seven journeys in Tibet, Claire chronicles a rapidly changing world - where monks talk on mobiles and Lhasa's sex industry thrives. But it is Ani, a penniless wanderer with a rich heart, who leaves an indelible impression. Claire Scobie captures the paradoxes of contemporary Tibet, a land steeped in religion, struggling against oppression and galloping towards modernity.

Rider Books 2007

ISBN 9781846040061

Pbk £7.99

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