The Great Chinese Revolution: 1800-1985

By John King Fairbank

Book Overview

Few countries have experienced the radical transformations carried out in China over the past two hundred years. From Imperial rule to communism, from its first attempts at modernization to explorations with capitalism, the recent history of China reflects the most important social, philosophical and political changes of our times.

Author and scholar John K. Fairbank examines the transformation of Imperial China to Communist China in The Great Chinese Revolution. Fairbanks takes an in-depth look at the many changes that have taken place, as well as modern economic development and what the future might hold for the world's most populous nation.

John K. Fairbank lived in Peking in the early 1930s. During World War II he spent time in Washington and China in government service. He has been president of the Association for Asian Studies and of the American Historical Association and has received numerous honorary degrees. He and his wife live according to the season in New Hampshire and in Cambridge, Mass.

"A masterful account of China's long and turbulent quest for modernity." -- Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 006039076X
• ISBN13: 9780060390761
• Release Date: September 1987
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 396 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Highly readable and authentic

I got this book for the specific purpose of studying China's secular civil wars -- the White Lotus Rebellion (1796-1805), the Taiping Rebellion (1851-64), and the civil war that began with Mao's Long March (1934), culminating in the Great Leap Forward (1959).Each of these civil wars resulted in massive bloodshed, including executions and famine, and was settled with compromises that lasted only a few decades, leading to the next civil war. This is important today, because the compromises forced on Mao after his disastrous and bloody Great Leap Forward are unraveling today, as peasants are losing their farms and their livelihoods and flooding into the cities. When a future economic downturn occurs, these peasants will be unemployed, with no infrastructure to support them, providing fertile ground for a new rebellion, possibly led by followers of the Falun Gong. This could happen any time in the next 10-15 years.Fairbank's informal style presents the details of these and other historical events in an enjoyable manner and from a Chinese and China-centric point of view, rather than from the typical America-centric point of view used by other writers. The result is both enjoyable and authentic, and gives us the historical background to understand the revolutionary changes going on in China today.

Very interesting interpretation

I wouldn't read this book as an introduction to Chinese history of this period. Fairbank's China: A New History, or several other general histories, are better for that. This book is Fairbank's argument that the development of Chinese history was far less heavily influenced by the West than most historians and Westerners believe. He convincingly puts the major interactions between China and the West in Chinese contexts, noting the similarities between Taipei Rebellion and the White Lotus Rebellion, for instance, although the latter event occurred when Western influence was much less. It's unfortunate that this topic is so politicized. Whether China was heavily or lightly influenced by the West should have no bearing on the inherent moral worth of the Chinese people, although many people on both sides of the debate don't see it that way. Nevertheless, Fairbank's topic is interesting in itself. Ultimately, I didn't find him fully convincing (not that I'm an expert), but I'm glad I read his book.

Refreshing Storytelling

If there's one book that I could recommend to the general reader on the history of modern China (i.e. from circa 1800-1985), it would be this book. To be honest, my first impression of this book is not a very good one in the sense that I did not feel like dancing in joy. This is because the book appears to me to be too simple, lacks good facts and not very scholarly. How could Fairbank write such a book? My expectations were very high or to be precise, I have expected the wrong things. This book is not intended to be scholarly, not intended to bog you down with boring details but is intended to be entertaining and at the same time have enough facts to highlight certain important events. I bought this book only on a second visit to the bookshop and perhaps due to a change of mood, I find the book entertaining and at the same time enlightening in that it proposes different views on events that have not been considered before. For example, the discussion on the port of Hankow was quite enlightening. This is refreshing and after understanding the intentions of the book, my perception and expectations changed and I was able to see it in a new way. Since then, this has been one of my favourite books on modern Chinese history and will become a benchmark for me to measure good historical storytelling.Compared to Jonathan Spence's "In Search of Modern China" this book appears to me be more entertaining and in a way, more intelligent. Highly recommended.

Fairbank's Crowning Glory

No decent individual who wants to talk about China, or wants to understand Chinese history in the last 150 years, can skip anything written by Fairbank. If there's anybody who can claim to be 'the' authority on China, Fairbank would be the one. And this work is his crowning glory, culmunating in a tour de force after research in this field for more than half a century. This work sees China's history from the late Qing period till the Post-Mao era as one huge struggle -- for modernity, for survival, for progress. If you are not convinced that China is agreat nation, read this and you'll change your mind, thanks to the late Fairbank.