At the Edge of Empire (eBook)

A Family's Reckoning with China

Wong Edward Wong (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024
552 Seiten
ProFile (Verlag)
978-1-78283-558-5 (ISBN)

Infos

'A brilliant personal account of China's borderlands and peoples' Francis Fukuyama'Edward Wong is about as knowledgeable a guide to China as a reader could ever hope to find' Barbara Demick'Finely crafted ... opens up the complexities of Chinese politics and Chinese life in a way that general readers will find fascinating' GuardianThe son of Chinese immigrants in Washington, DC, Edward Wong grew up among family secrets. His father toiled in restaurants and rarely spoke of his childhood during the Japanese occupation of China and his years in the People's Liberation Army under Mao. His journey as a soldier took him from Manchuria during the Korean War to Xinjiang on the Central Asian frontier. In 1962, disillusioned with the Communist Party, he planned a desperate escape to Hong Kong. When Edward Wong became the Beijing bureau chief for The New York Times, he investigated his father's past while assessing for himself the dream of a resurgent China. He met the citizens driving the nation's astounding economic boom and global expansion - and grappling with the vortex of nationalistic rule under Xi Jinping. He witnessed protests and civil rights struggles in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, and had an insider's view of the world's two superpowers meeting at a perilous crossroads. In this essential work for understanding China today, Wong tells a moving chronicle of a family and a nation that spans nearly a century of momentous change.

Rezensionen

Edward Wong's exquisite family chronicle achieves a level of humane illumination that only one of America's finest reporters on China could deliver ... A profound story of modern China itself

This sparkling book ... tells a story of greater China that is both intimately personal and fundamentally global, a journey steeped in trauma, nostalgia, and even poetry that only [Wong's] reporting talents could conjure

A touching family memoir... about an immigrant's yearning to understand his heritage and his family

An absorbing new memoir [which] explores the country through a triple prism of history, geography and ancestry... stories are beautifully told and expose the contradictions of modern China

In telling this personal story about family memory, exile and return, the book also takes in the breadth of [China's] evolution during the 20th century

A seamless and engaging hybrid narrative that reminds us it's people who write history

A sprawling, complex morality tale, sweeping us along.

A true epic and an extraordinary work of reportage. The son of two empires, Edward Wong is admirably clear-eyed in his ability to weave the personal and intimate with the monumental

A fascinating read ... a beautifully-written personal account of China's rise to a superpower ... vividly told

Edward Wong is about as knowledgeable a guide to China as a reader could ever hope to find ... [Brings] it all vividly to life in a way no other book on China has for me

This book's power comes from Wong's broad sense of the patterns of Chinese history, reflected in the lives of a father and son, and from his ability to toggle effortlessly between the epic and the intimate

A masterpiece ... a must-read for anyone with the faintest interest in China, America's relationship with China, and the whole question of empire in the contemporary world

It is rare for a book to combine past and present, personal history and the history of a vast nation with such thoughtfulness, grace, and panache

Utterly gripping and original ... an unforgettable account of the country's recent past and present

Astonishing ... A humane, moving story against a massive canvas of China's rise to power

In the age of the instant expert, Edward Wong is the real thing ... [A] blend of epic family memoir and deeply insightful reporting on the rise of an increasingly autocratic China under Xi Jinping

Arresting ... a family history that exposes China's authoritarian regime and an era of repression

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 27.6.2024
• Zusatzinfo: 16PP SECTION B&W
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Freizeit / Hobby ► Sammeln / Sammlerkataloge
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Schlagworte: 1997 • 2008 Olympics • Autocrat • Beijing • Belt and Road • China • communism • Cultural revolution • Desertification • Edward Wong • Empire • Environment • Gobi desert • Great Leap Forward • Guangzhou • Hong Kong • huawei • Korean War • maoism • Mao Zedong • New York Times • North Korea • People's Liberation Army • People's Republic of China • Re-education • South China Sea • state capitalism • Surveillance • Tibet • Uighur • United States of America • Washington • Xinjiang • Xi Xinping • Xi Xinping Thought
• ISBN-10: 1-78283-558-X / 178283558X
• ISBN-13: 978-1-78283-558-5 / 9781782835585