China History Trade

Many nations define themselves in terms of territory or people; China defines itself in terms of history. Taking into account the country's unrivaled, voluminous tradition of history writing, John Keay has composed a vital and illuminating overview of the nation's complex and vivid past. Keay's authoritative history examines 5,000 years in China, from the time of the Three Dynasties through Chairman Mao and the current economic transformation of the country.

While there are many books that explore China’s history, public knowledge is still lacking. Many people can name more than one Roman Emperor, but how many can name a Chinese Emperor?

Ancient China collides with newfangled America in this epic tale of opium smugglers, sea pirates, and dueling clipper ships. Brilliantly illuminating one of the least-understood areas of American history, best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin now traces our fraught relationship with China back to its roots: the unforgiving nineteenth-century seas that separated a brash, rising naval power from a battered ancient empire. It is a prescient fable for our time, one that surprisingly continues to shed light on our modern relationship with China.

As one of the most potent turning points in the country's modern history, the Opium War has since come to stand for everything that today's China seeks to put behind it. In this dramatic, epic story, award-winning historian Stephen Platt sheds new light on the early attempts by Western traders and missionaries to "open" China even as China's imperial rulers were struggling to manage their country's decline and Confucian scholars grappled with how to use foreign trade to China's advantage.

When China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, most experts expected the WTO rules and procedures would liberalize China and make it "a responsible stakeholder in the liberal world order". But the experts made the wrong bet. China today is liberalizing neither economically nor politically but, if anything, becoming more authoritarian and mercantilist. In this book, renowned globalization and Asia expert Clyde Prestowitz describes the key challenges posed by China and the strategies America and the Free World must adopt to meet them.

In 1848, the British East India Company, having lost its monopoly on the tea trade, engaged Robert Fortune, a Scottish gardener, botanist, and plant hunter, to make a clandestine trip into the interior of China - territory forbidden to foreigners - to steal the closely guarded secrets of tea horticulture and manufacturing. For All the Tea in China is the remarkable account of Fortune's journeys into China - a thrilling narrative that combines history, geography, botany, natural science, and old-fashioned adventure.

Asian American private investigator Lydia Chin knows New York City's Chinatown, its people, and its ways as no outsider ever could. It's a city within a city, a rich melange of smells, sounds, dark shops, and close-knit families - a world all its own. And in all of Chinatown, there is no one like Lydia, who has a nose for trouble, a disapproving Chinese mother, and a partner named Bill Smith who's been living above a bar for 16 years. Hired to find some precious stolen porcelain, Lydia follows a trail of clues from highbrow art dealers into a world of Chinese gangs.

In 1784, when Americans first voyaged to China, they confronted Chinese authorities who were unaware that the United States even existed. Nevertheless, a long, complicated, and fruitful trade relationship was born after American traders, missionaries, diplomats, and others sailed to China with lofty ambitions: to acquire fabulous wealth, convert China to Christianity, and even command a Chinese army. In America's First Adventure in China, John Haddad provides a colourful history of the evolving cultural exchange and interactions between these countries.

Susan L. Shirk, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for China, knows many of today's Chinese rulers personally and has studied them for three decades. She offers invaluable insight into how they think—and what they fear. In this revealing book, you will see the world through the eyes of men like President Hu Jintao and former President Jiang Zemin. We discover a fragile communist regime desperate to survive in a society turned upside down by miraculous economic growth and a stunning new openness to the greater world.

If the 20th century was the American century, then the 21st century belongs to China. Now the one and only Jim Rogers shows how any investor can get in on the ground floor of "the greatest economic boom since England's Industrial Revolution". In this indispensable new book, Rogers, one of the world's most successful investors, brings his unerring investment acumen to bear on this huge and unruly land now being opened to the world and exploding in potential.

An exciting, hugely revealing account of China’s burgeoning presence in Africa - a developing empire already shaping, and reshaping, the future of millions of people. A prizewinning foreign correspondent and former New York Times bureau chief in Shanghai and in West and Central Africa, Howard French is uniquely positioned to tell the story of China in Africa. Through meticulous on-the-ground reporting, French crafts a layered investigation of astonishing depth and breadth.

Have you ever wondered how China became the most populous and one of the most industrially active nations today? This audiobook will take you from Ancient China and imperial dynasties to communism and capitalism. Discover the rich history of this superpower. Subjects include: agriculture, capitalism, ancient Chinese culture, language, spirituality and religion, literature, music, arts, architecture, history of martial arts, old-world medicine, military history, and the Sun Tzu dynasties.

The Silk Road, which has been understood as a generalized route of trade between the East and the West, is different from European, North African, and Near Eastern trade routes because until recently, it has been understood as solely being a land route; in fact, it was believed to be the longest overland trade route in human history. The history of the Silk Road is extremely complex. It cannot be told as a singular chronological narrative.

Trying to squeeze an entire history of Chinese civilization into a brief, one volume account is a formidable task, but one that has succeeded brilliantly here. Hilda Hookham has provided us with a concise story that, while not getting too entangled with personalities and cultural issues, manages to navigate the swirling passage of events that comprise over 3,000 years of Chinese political history.

Over the past four decades, China's remarkable transformation has garnered admiration but also sparked concern. George Magnus draws on his intimate knowledge of this dynamic nation to uncover the origins of its ascent and show why the economic traps it faces at home and the political challenges it faces abroad pose a serious threat to its continued rise.

When Hu Jintao, China's then vice president, came to visit the New York Stock Exchange and Ground Zero in 2002, he asked Hank Paulson to be his guide. It was a testament to the pivotal role that Goldman Sachs played in helping China experiment with private enterprise. In Dealing with China, the best-selling author of On the Brink draws on his unprecedented access to both the political and business leaders of modern China to answer several key questions.

Here is a fascinating compact history of Chinese political, economic, and cultural life, ranging from the origins of civilization in China to the beginning of the 21st century. Historian Paul Ropp combines vivid story-telling with astute analysis to shed light on some of the larger questions of Chinese history. Offering a global perspective, the book tells how China's nomadic neighbors to the north and west influenced much of the political, military, and even cultural history of China.

Most global citizens are well aware of the explosive growth of the Chinese economy. Indeed, China has famously become the "workshop of the world." Yet, while China watchers have shed much light on the country's internal dynamics - China's politics, its vast social changes, and its economic development - few have focused on how this increasingly powerful nation has become more active and assertive throughout the world.

The history of China is complex - perhaps, more complex than that of other nations. The ethnic groups that compose China go back to prehistoric times, and each group lent its own color to the enormous nation. It is not like a diluted mixture of all its cultures; rather, it is a collage. Yet, there are immutable elements still present today. Rice originated in China, and so did stir-frying.

The modern day city of Guangzhou is located in the mountainous region of south China. Near the Baiyun Mountains that rise from the edge of the city and the eastern banks of the Pearl River (Zhujiang), the city today covers approximately 7, 400 square kilometers. The location of the city provides it the opportunity to oversee the delta of the Pearl River, which is China’s third largest river.