JONATHAN D. SPENCE THE SE "027082

Transcription

1 JONATHAN D. SPENCE THE SEARCH FOR

2 JONATHAN D. SPENCE THE SE ISBN Ô "027082

3 FPT ISBN $29.95 USA $39.95 CAN. The Search for Modern China is epic history. With unsurpassed learning, imagination, and passion, Jonathan D. Spence tells a story of vast struggle, of exhilarating dreams and crushed lives, and above all of the sheer capacity of the human spirit to endure. The history of China is as rich and strange as that of any country on earth. Yet for many, Chinas history remains unknown, or known only through the stylized images that generations in the West have cherished or reviled as truth. With his command of character and event the product of thirty years of research and reflection in the field Spence dispels those myths in a powerful narrative. Over four centuries of Chinese history, from the waning days of the once-glorious Ming dynasty to Deng Xiaopings bloody suppression of the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, Spence fashions the astonishing story of the effort to achieve a modern China. Through the ideas and emotions of its reformist Confucian scholars, its poets, novelists, artists, and its visionary students, we see one of the world's oldest cultures struggling to (Continued on back flap) Jacket design by Hugh O'Neill Front of jacket: Zhu Bang, Portrait of an Official in Front of the Forbidden City, c Courtesy, The Trustees of the British Library. Back of jacket: Pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, May 17, AP/Wide World Photos. 5-90

4 (Continued from iront flap) define itself as Chinese and modern. Through the achievements and failures of the great Qing emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong and the dominant figures of the twentieth century Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kaishek, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping we see an immense nation struggling to establish harmony within and autonomy in the world. And through the daily work of survival and the collective bursts of rebellion and revolution 1644, 1850, 1911, 1949 we see the Chinese people struggling to remake their lives. In the events of spring 1989, Chinas grim cycle of protest and repression continued. One of the oldest human struggles was repeated as its current agony bonded Chinas present to its past. With 200 black-and-white and 25 full-color illustrations (many published for the first time), and 45 maps. JONATHAN D. SPENCE is George Burton Adams Professor of History at Yale University. Born in England in 1936, he was educated at Winchester College and Cambridge University. He commenced graduate work at Yale in 1959, and earned a Ph.D. in history in He is the author of eight acclaimed works on China, including Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K'anghsi, The Death of Woman Wang, The Gate of Heavenly Peace (awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for history and named one of the best nonfiction books of the year by the New York Times Book Review), The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, and The Question of Hu. Professor Spence was named a MacArthur Fellow in July He is married to the artist Helen Alexander, and they live in Woodbridge, Connecticut. Prt'ited tu the United States oj America

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6 Also by J O N A T H A N D. S P E N C E THE QUESTION OF HU THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI THE GATE OF HEAVENLY PEACE: THE CHINESE AND THEIR REVOLUTION, THE DEATH OF WOMAN WANG EMPEROR OF CHINA: SELF-PORTRAIT OF K'ANG-HSI To CHANGE CHINA: WESTERN ADVISERS IN CHINA, TS'AO YIN AND THE K'ANG-HSI EMPEROR: BONDSERVANT AND MASTER

7 THE SEARCH FOR MODERN C H I N A

8 J O N A T H A N D. S P E N C E W-W-NORTON & COMPANY New York London

9 THE SEARCH FOR MODE R N C H I N A

10 Copyright 1990 by Jonathan D. Spence All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. The text of this book is composed in Granjon, with display type set in Aeterna. Composition by Vail-Ballou. Manufacturing by Arcata Halliday/Hawkins Book design by Antonina Krass. First Edition Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China / by Jonathan D. Spence. 1st ed. p. cm. 1. China History Ch'ing dynasty, China History 20th century. I. Title. DS754.S '.03 dc W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 37 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3NU