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A startling, eye-opening account of a fascinating and decisive moment in Chinese history, packed with evocative stories. Jasper Becker tells the story of why and how China's leaders set about to destroy and rebuild one of the world's greatest cities and how many of the residents tried to stop it and protect their great architectural legacy.
Reaktion’s new CityScopes series consists of concise, illustrated guides that provide a social and urban history from a city’s beginnings to the present day. Written by authors with unique and intimate knowledge of each city, these books offer fascinating vignettes on the quintessential and the quirky. In the first book of the series, Linda Jaivin explores a city at the heart of one of the world’s oldest civilizations and the capital of its newest superpower—Beijing. In China’s central city, Jaivin finds thousands of years of history dating back to our ancestors, a story that includes dynastic empires, sieges, massacres, rebellions, and political spectacle. Recounting the lively history of the city, Jaivin discovers the Peking Man and the capital’s many legendary incarnations, such as the Cambaluc that Marco Polo wrote about in awe. She reveals it to be full of charismatic personalities and dramatic events, a place that has produced some of China’s most iconic works of literature, theater, and music. She also offers thought-provoking essays on contemporary topics ranging from the elemental problems of air and water to the vibrant art scene and the architectural adventurism of the city’s “hyperbuildings.” Generously illustrated, this guide provides helpful maps and suggested itineraries as well as practical recommendations for hotels, restaurants, museums, and other sites. Taking readers to lakeshores, down into the subway, and around the bustling art districts, Beijing is the ultimate introduction to this extraordinary city for travelers and armchair explorers alike.
'Friends and Enemies' delivers a thorough account of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), explaining its origins and evolution, looking at options for its future, and laying bare its inner workings.
A guide to the history of China’s capital, from before its rise to prominence as the seat of empires to the 2022 Winter Olympics. Before China’s capital became a sprawling megacity and international center of business and culture, its fortunes fluctuated under a dozen dynasties. It has been a capital for several states, including those headed by Mongolian chiefs and the glorious Ming emperors, whose tombs can still be found on its outskirts. And before all that, it was a campsite for primitive hominids, known as the Peking Man. A Short History of Beijing tells the story of this remarkable city, from its more famous residents—Khubilai Khan, Marco Polo, and Chairman Mao—right up to the twenty-first century, as modern construction wiped out so much of the old city to make way for its twenty-million-strong population. Through his timely and intimate portrait of the world’s most populous capital city, Jonathan Clements reveals the history of China itself.
This fully updated edition responds to themes emerging over the decade since publication of the first edition and transmits the content into the 2020s. The themes include technological change, ethical consumption, and the tourist response to health risk, political instability and other uncertainty. Examples are introduced from all parts of the world, capturing the explosion of research on tourist behaviour, to produce a text that is strong both on theory and practical application. This is the go-to text for students and academics interested in tourist behaviour both from within the tourism field and from other fields and disciplines.
As China’s global influence continues to rise, its capital, Beijing, has become increasingly important—and a popular tourist destination, greeting close to five million international visitors each year. An Armchair Traveller’s History of Beijing presents the capital from its earliest beginnings as a prehistoric campsite for Peking Man through its fluctuating fortunes under a dozen dynasties. Home to capitals of several states over time, the site of modern Beijing has been ruled by Mongolian chiefs and the glorious Ming emperors, whose tombs can still be found on its outskirts. Through Beijing, we can experience Chinese history itself, including its more famous residents—including Khubilai Khan, Mulan, and Marco Polo. Special emphasis is placed on Beijing’s precarious heritage in the twenty-first century, as modern construction wipes out much of the old city to make way for homes for twenty million people. This book also offers detailed information on sites of tourist interest, including the pros and cons of different sections of the Great Wall and the best ways to see the Forbidden City and the fast-disappearing relics of the city’s Manchu and Maoist eras. A chapter on food and drink examines not only local delicacies, but the many other Chinese dishes that form part of Beijing’s rich dining traditions. With its blend of rich history and expert tips, An Armchair Traveller’s History of Beijing is an essential introduction to one of the world’s most remarkable cities.
Very little has been written on acupuncture and the Oriental medical view of health for the lay person in recent years. Even less has been written on the training requirements which vary enormously. This unique book clarifies this situation. It introduces the reader to the key concepts of healthy living, wellbeing, longevity, and their own inner kingdom. It draws upon the wisdom inherent in ancient Chinese philosophy whose universal principles were laid down in the Nei Jing, the oldest extant medical book in the world, written around 221 BCE. It brings alive and makes relevant this ancient understanding of the human being and the concept of health maintenance in the 21st century and is presented in a clear, easy to read and interesting format. It involves the individual in looking at their own health and lifestyle and offers advice as to how these might be optimised for life in the modern world. This book covers the historical background of oriental medicine, gives details of the 5 Element and Yin/Yang theories and brings to light its remarkable transition from one side of the world to the other. It explains how diagnosis, the consultation process, acupuncture and moxabustion work and offers extensive advice on preventive health.
“A blow-by-blow account ... An important corrective to the conventional view of China's rise.”--Financial Times From internationally renowned historian Frank Dikötter, winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize, a myth-shattering history of China from the death of Chairman Mao to Xi Jinping. Through decades of direct experience of the People's Republic combined with extraordinary access to hundreds of hitherto unseen documents in communist party archives, the author of The People's Trilogy offers a riveting account of China's rise from the disaster of the Cultural Revolution. He takes us inside the country's unprecedented four-decade economic transformation--from rural villages to industrial metropoles and elite party conclaves--that vaulted the nation from 126th largest economy in the world to second largest. A historian at the pinnacle of his field, Dikötter challenges much of what we think we know about how this happened. Casting aside the image of a society marching unwaveringly toward growth, in lockstep to the beat of the party drum, he recounts instead a fascinating tale of contradictions, illusions, and palace intrigue, of disasters narrowly averted, shadow banking, anti-corruption purges, and extreme state wealth existing alongside everyday poverty. He examines China's navigation of the 2008 financial crash, its increasing hostility towards perceived Western interference, and its development into a thoroughly entrenched dictatorship with a sprawling security apparatus and the most sophisticated surveillance system in the world. As this magisterial book makes clear, the communist party's goal was never to join the democratic world, but to resist it--and ultimately defeat it.
Through the centre of China’s historic capital, Long Peace Street cuts a long, arrow-straight line. It divides the Forbidden City, home to generations of Chinese emperors, from Tiananmen Square, the vast granite square constructed to glorify a New China under Communist rule. To walk the street is to travel through the story of China’s recent past, wandering among its physical relics and hearing echoes of its dramas. Long Peace Street recounts a journey in modern China, a walk of twenty miles across Beijing offering a very personal encounter with the life of the capital’s streets. At the same time, it takes the reader on a journey through the city’s recent history, telling the story of how the present and future of the world’s rising superpower has been shaped by its tumultuous past, from the demise of the last imperial dynasty in 1912 through to the present day.