At the Edge of Empire

A Family's Reckoning with China

By: Edward Wong

Narrated by: Edward Wong, Will Dao

“A sprawling, complex morality tale, sweeping us along.”—The Wall Street Journal

“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.”—The Washington Post

“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.”—Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic

“Edward Wong’s exquisite family chronicle achieves a level of humane illumination that only one of America’s finest reporters on China could deliver. In tracing his father’s journey—from Hong Kong to Xinjiang to America—Wong gives us a profound story of modern China itself. Anyone who once was absorbed by the power of Wild Swans will savor this meditation on memory, history, and belonging.”—Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition, winner of the National Book Award

One of Foreign Policy’s Most Anticipated Books of 2024

An epic story of modern China that weaves a riveting family memoir with vital reporting by the New York Times diplomatic correspondent

The son of Chinese immigrants in Washington, DC, Edward Wong grew up among family secrets. His father toiled in Chinese restaurants and rarely spoke of his native land or his years in the People’s Liberation Army under Mao. Yook Kearn Wong came of age during the Japanese occupation in World War II and the Communist revolution, when he fell under the spell of Mao’s promise of a powerful China. His astonishing 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 made plans for a desperate escape to Hong Kong.

When Edward Wong became the Beijing bureau chief for The New York Times, he investigated his father’s mysterious 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, the most powerful leader since Mao. Following in his father’s footsteps, he witnessed ethnic struggles in Xinjiang and Tibet and pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. And he had an insider’s view of the world’s two superpowers meeting at a perilous crossroads.

Wong tells a moving chronicle of a family and a nation that spans decades of momentous change and gives profound insight into a new authoritarian age transforming the world. A groundbreaking book, At the Edge of Empire is the essential work for understanding China today.

©2024 Edward Wong (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“[Mr. Wong] brings to his descriptions of his father’s moral dilemmas the same objectivity and rectitude that marked his reporting as a correspondent in China. . . . Mr. Wong is very much his father’s son. He has an abiding love of China, and of its culture and people. But his eyes are wide open when he confronts its faults, of which his book gives us an invaluable account.”—The Wall Street Journal

“[A]n absorbing new memoir. . . . [Wong] explores the country through a triple prism of history, geography and ancestry. . . . The stories are beautifully told and expose the contradictions of modern China. The empire of the title is ever-present; so is the catharsis of the book’s subtitle: ‘A family’s reckoning with China.’”—The Economist

“A journalist merges family history with his own experience in Beijing to provide a fascinating insight into Chinese life and politics. . . . Wong skilfully weaves his father’s and his uncle’s stories into an account of his own experiences in China, in a way that is deeply satisfying. At the Edge of Empire is valuable both on a political and a personal level, and opens up the complexities of Chinese politics and Chinese life in a way that general readers will find fascinating.”—The Guardian

China’s Social and Economic Evolution Under Communism: Progress, Errors, and Implications of

I loved how the story was told through a family’s personal experience. Moving from the early days of enthusiasm for the communist takeover to disillusionment and moving to the USA. Also I began to understand more about the people of southern China.

Insight to a strange and distant place

I especially enjoyed the experiences that were shared by the author and his father as they experienced a transition of China since the Japanese Chinese war. I came to understand better the tumultuous upheavals that reset the country during this. And continue today. I also better understand now why China feels threatened and contained by the United States. Clearly outside powers have been responsible for many of the suspicions and protections that they take today. It is clear also that the communist are just as susceptible to abuses of power and corruption as our other countries, political endeavors.

Two tales of change

Incredible intertwining of two stories of living in and leaving China. A father falling out of love with his youthful ideals, amd his son learning why that may have happened first hand and through stories.

PERSPECTIVE

This starts out as a family story but as it unfolds to an American, born in the roaring 20s soon reveals itself to be revelatory of the enormity and persistence of the Han Chinese monumental history and brought to my mind what life will be in North America with Han Chinese management as it seems possible that sometime in the coming half century, a rockets fired from mainland China will damage or destroy a US Navy carrier in the strait between mainland, China, and Taiwan.

What a great story

The depth of knowledge is astounding. The emotions of characters lend the narrative an unforgettable quality. Fine work.