History of India and China in the 20th Century?

Can anyone recommend any good histories of 20th Century India or China?

maybe not quite what you're looking for, but there are a number of good books about chinese invasion & occupation of tibet. i think the best book i've read on the topic is in exile from the land of snows, but this focuses mostly on the dalai lama and his escape from chinese persecution.

What I am MOST looking for is something like "A History of China/India in the 20th Century" . . . but I'd find any good book about any aspect of China or India during this time interesting, so thanks!

Hm. I'm not sure if I know anything as comprehensive as you're looking for, but I found Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China very education. Jung Chang's family lived through the most important events of China in the 20th century - the early civil wars and the founding of the Republic, World War II, Communist take-over, the famine caused by Mao's Great Leap Forward and the persecution of the Cultural Revolution. Although Chang focuses on her own family, she considers the larger picture as well. Seeing how these events shaped the lives of ordinary people really made them memorable and moving to me.

If you're interested in World War II, I'd also really recommend The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang. Of course it focuses on just one city's experience with the war, but it really delves into the factors that contributed to the massacre and how it was experienced by the Japanese, the Chinese and the foreigners who lived there.

I would suggest the following:

The Boxer Rebellion by Diana Preston

Half-crown Colony; a historical profile of Hong Kong by James Pope-Hennessy

A Thousand Pieces of Gold: a Memoir of China's Past through its Proverbs by Adeline Yen Mah

**Some of the touchstones do not appear as the books I mentioned.

Search for Modern China by Jonathan Spence. It covers more than just the 20th century, but it a great reference and is often my go-to book when I have a quick question about something. You can't go wrong with anything by Spence.

Anything by Spence is always a good read. For a general read The Rise of Modern China is not bad.

Definitely anything by Spence or Fairbank! Take a look at my library...I have a good 20-25 books on chinese history, ranging from mainly 1400 onward. I can recommend "Red Star Over China" for primary source, thats Edgar Snow. I always liked "Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci", although thats not 20th c. "The New Emperors" by Salisbury is a good review, not as good as Spence or Fairbanks though. Again take a look at the books in my library....they are all good!

Akiyama--

I'd highly recommend Spence's Gate of Heavenly Peace. It's just 20th century--well, 1898 onwards, so he captures all the reform movements that led up to, well, everything.

When I lived in Hong Kong, I read quite a few histories of the 20th century as well as of briefer periods. But Spence does something special here. The revolution also set off, in the 1920's this great, too brief, period of literary flowering--literary reform really. The discovery of realism, influences of all sorts of Western writers. So as he continues with his story of the century, Spence also weaves in what happens to these poets and fiction writers. Who becomes communist, commits suicide, ends up in labor camps. Communism pretty much halted the development of real literature until mid-1980's or thereabouts. So much waste. It really gives the book momentum.

You can look at his references to see what you want to pursue next but it did send me off in search of the literature. Lu Xun aside, a lot of it isn't v good but you can see where it was going.

I had read JK Fairbank in college but knowing what we know now (about the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, Hundred Flowers, all around persecution), I found him way too naive. Loads of pages on grain production in the 1950's but nothing about starvation. when after all, quite a few people were escaping to HK. He never heard of them? Ignored them? Same could be said for the Cultural Revolution. And Snow is ridiculous. Kind of fun to see what people swallowed then ... but you have to start with the facts to get the hoot.

Of course there's loads on the 1920's, not enough on the war in China and the colonial powers (especially Britain's) role in working with the Japanese, loads on the Long March, Yenan. But you might want to start with Jung Chang's recent bio of Mao because she and her husband write well and they did unearth a lot of new material.

On the U.S. and aid to China/Chang/Red Army: Joseph Stilwell and the American Experience in China by Barbara Tuchman stands up pretty well even though she didn't read Chinese and I'm sure a lot more archival material has been released since.

Oh, the Great Leap Forward: Hungry Ghosts by Jasper Becker. I think he makes a pretty good case that 30 million people starved to death in the late 1950's. He's a (Chinese-speaking) journalist and he really mucked around getting interviews and also using material smuggled out after Tiananmen.

I'd like to know what you find for India. I just tried to get though Sidney Wolpert's Shameful Flight--about the ignoble exit from India. God knows he's a fine historian, but it was dense to get through.There are so many Indian historians who have been claiming back history, so to speak but I don't know where to begin (I have zippo interest in the great white English explorer looking down from the greatest heights ...).

I'd be especially interested in some of the early 20th century nationalist movements and parties--like the first suicide protesters, the precursors of today's fundamentalist groups in Pakistan. Anyone with advice? What about Nehru's The Idea of India?

One great book about the Nationalist movement in India is called "Indian nationalism - A history", by Jim Masselos! Check it out.

"India After Gandhi: the history of the world's largest democracy" is supposed to be a good look at modern India. I haven't read it, but it's got a 4.5 rating on LT...

I really enjoyed Ed Jocelyn's The Long March about walking all over contemporary China, retracing Mao's route. An excellent look at the way China is today.

(Sorry, there seems to be a problem with the title link.)

For India, the second half of the Metcalf's A Concise History of India gives a subtle discussion of the 20th century, perhaps somewhat terse, but without strong ideological slant..

124. Out of Mao's shadow. The struggle for the soul of a New China
Finished reading: 20 August 2011



Within the People's Republic of China, discussing contemporary history in public is taboo. Yesterday, I watched the live broadcast of the wreath-laying ceremony at the The Monument to the People's Heroes, on the occasion of the 62nd anniversary of the foundation of the New China. An aged and eminent Chinese professor was interviewed and asked for comment on the proceedings. Interestingly, this professor made the rather bold claim that the monument, which was erected in the 1950s, does not only commemorate past martyrs who laid down their lives for the revolutionary struggles of the Chinese people during the 19th and 20th centuries, but included those who fell in the years leading up to the present. Summarising China's contemporary history, the commentator divided modern history after 1949 in two periods, each subdivided into three periods, as follows:

Period: 1949 - 1976
Sub 1: 1949 - 1956; characterized by great optimism and progress
Sub 2: 1957 -1965; characterized by some serious mistakes
Sub 3: 1966 - 1976; a disaster ("I am not going to say anything more")
Period: 1977 - now
Sub 1: 1977 - 1986; characterized by great optimism and progress
Sub 2: 1987 - 1994; characterized by great progress with the opening up & reform
Sub 3: 1995 - now; characterized by increasing gap between rich and poor and corruption

Regardless of the typical refusal to refrain from comment on the Cultural Revolution (though naming it!), the chronology and characterization are pretty candid.

During my 12 year stay in China, and longer than that experience with Chinese people, it is obvious that Chinese people need to come to terms with their history on their own, as this is painful enough for them as it is. And this can only be done in very small steps.

Who has the right to claim that these steps are too small? Historiography of modern China is divided by Chinese scholars, Western sinologists and an ever increasing group of journalistics publicists, all of whose allegions are divided by their loyalties.

The author of this book, a journalist, Philip P. Pan makes clear where his loyalties lie in the introduction. Mr Pan is clearly no "friend of China" and expresses his hope that his book might be instrumental to, and he himself a witness of the collapse of the system. This stance made me reflect on the objectivity dilemma, and the value of this book.

Perhaps I should mention here that in my final assessment I appreciate the book highly, in spite of a number of flaws and the intentions of the author. The book seems to be written from two angles of motivation, the one mentioned above, with which I do not sympathize, the other however is more sympathetic, namely the preservation of people’s stories for later generations.

Out of Mao's shadow. The struggle for the soul of a New China consists of 11 chapters, covering the same periods of Chinese contemporary history as above. Needless to say, the author has only picked stories which cast more of a shadow than expel any.

The first three chapters focus on the story of a young female student who resisted the oppression exercised from the late 1950s onward, the second and third sub-period. While from a Western point of view the issue of “breaking her will” is very valid, we also see that her behaviour (stubbornness) is very un-Chinese; in fact, all her classmates and other prisoners survive the whole period and the madness. These chapters are flawed in the sense that the author reports the facts through the lens of a Chinese film maker who tries to document the student’s life. It is not very clear where the film maker speaks and where Mr Pan steps in.

Chapter four is the most balanced and has a poetic quality. It tells an original story, not much heard elsewhere. This chapter comes closest to the author’s other motivation to preserve these stories for future readers. The story sounds true and is moving.

Corruption is a big problem in China, which is not denied by anyone. There is no doubt that power and politics are woven into an intricate pattern in many countries around the world, and in a country like China where there is perhaps more money, and less regulation, excesses may appear on an even larger scale. Interesting reading, though.

The final part of the book is somewhat weak, as the author chews up an old story, and spreads it out over four chapters; 7, 9, 10 and 11. While approaching the story from slightly different angles, the fabric of the book becomes very this here, the more so because this story has been dealt with in more detail in the book Will the boat sink the water? The life of China's peasants by Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao.

There is no chapter dedicated to the events in 1989, although they are described lightly as part of the biography of Mr Pu Zhiqiang in chapter 10 (pp. 274-275), conclusions which are quite a lot less shocking than we are used to from other publications.

I do not know what readers outside China would make of this book, but I felt it was rewarding and insightful. Clearly, the book is not entirely balanced and has some flaws which the author could have avoided. The author’s outspoken intentions should caution readers to be critical. While some stories are controversial, others are not. For readers who are not necessarily looking for judgement, there is a lot to listen to and ponder on, reading this book.

159. The unknown war. North China 1937-1945
Finished reading: 20 November 2011



In 2003, The Foreign Languages Press (外文出版社) started with the publication of a 50-book series under the general title of "Light on China". All of these books were written in English by foreigners who lived and / or worked in China and witnessed historic moments in Chinese history over the past 150 years. I have never seen a complete overview of the series, and do not know whether all 50 volumes have appeared. While many authors were professional writers and journalists, not all were. Most of these volumes have been published in various foreign countries, but are usually no longer available there, and have a very limited readership. That is a pity, because all books in the series have undiminished value as primary sources, relating first-hand and eye-witness experience of the modern history of China and the People's Republic of China.

The irony of revolutions is, of course, that many revolutionaries of the first hour were in fact middle-class bourgeois students, and many of the foreigners who joined the revolutionary movement in China were either middle- or upper class. For instance, Michael Lindsay the author of this book is otherwise known as Michael Francis Morris Lindsay, 2nd Baron Lindsay of Birker, although he had not yet inherited that title at the time he was in China.

Michael Lindsay came to Beijing in 1937 as a lecturer at newly-founded Yenching University. The book relates, albeit very concisely, parts of the early history of the school, including the person of Dr. J. Leighton Stuart, its president. Shortly after taking up residence in Beijing, the Second World War starts with the invasion of China by the Japanese and the occupation of Beijing. In the Spring of 1938, the author and two other teachers travel to central Hebei where "an interesting organisation was developing" (p.32), later described as the "Central Hopei People's Self Defence Army". At first, crossing from Japanese occupied territory to Chinese held areas was no problem, but later became a clandestine action. In subsequent chapters, the author describes the gradual development of his involvement with the Chinese guarrillas, from repeated trips to and fro Beijing, to their settlement in the guarrilla controlled area. Lindsay makes a considerable contribution to the resistance through his skill of building radios. The book describes the war in China as a personally experienced report, and is richly illustrated by (rather small) B-W photos of the war.Living in the unoccupied territories, Michael Lindsay meets many of the other iconic foreigners who played a part in China's war of resistance and subsequent civil war leading to the revolution in 1949. Besides, the author met many important Chinese revolutionaries, especially between May 1944 and November 1945, when he stayed at the revolutionary base in Yenan.

The book was mostly a rather boring read, as the events are never at the fore-front of historical events, and mostly describes everyday life in backwater areas. Some illustrations are so small, that they are not very clear. Interesting, but rather specialist.

009. China 2020. How Western business can - and should - influence social and political change in the coming decade
Finished reading: 8 January 2012



Many books about contemporary China are either about history, thick ponderous tomes, often condemning China's recent past, or flashy, and highly speculative, ill-researched best-sellers selling pie-in-the-sky. I was a bit worried when I bought China 2020 by Michael A. Santoro, which seems to be a manifest, as I feared it would be another book to tell the Chinese what's wrong with their country and their economy. The Chinese get very tired of foreigners coming to tell them that everything is wrong, and all will be well, if only they do it the Western way.

I found China 2020 a very well-researched, very spot-on description of some of the major problems that China struggles with, without the usual pointing-the-finger style of writing. Despite its conciseness (a mere 140 pages), the author covers a lot of ground, and has picked some essential issues still achieving a fair sense of comprehensiveness. The book covers issues which bother a foreign audience such as human rights, freedom of speech (Internet), Rule of Law, working conditions, product safety, etc. The most interesting thing about the book is the perspective it offers, highlighting how foreign companies hold back changes for the better, and pointing out what foreign companies could and should do to facilitate developments in China, which will, eventually, be inevitable anyway.

Very impressive, and highly recommended for people who are looking for a short-cut into understanding what's really going on in China today.

The death of Mao. The Tangshan earthquake and the birth of the New China
Finished reading: 24 April 2013



The death of Mao. The Tangshan earthquake and the birth of the New China is an incredibly shoddy piece of historicism. The author, who claims to have read History, should really know better than to publish such an ill-researched and carelessly edited book. It is only by a small margin that the author, James Palmer, belongs to the so-called balinghou The Chinese equivalent of Generation X, which, as Palmer wrote elsewhere "They do not bother to check the details." This harsh criticism applies very much so to Mr Palmer's own book.

Living in Beijing since 2004, Mr Palmer is apparently unable to read Chinese. According to the acknowledgements, pp. 250 ff., Palmer gathered the materials for his book by asking Chinese people to interview Chinese eye witnesses, and had these interviews transcribed and translated, to be used as the basic material for his book. This work was supplemented by archival and photographic research by his assistant. While in itself, this research method is valid, and very interesting, perhaps even novel to China, the author should realize that it is a potential source of inaccuracies, and that many details need to be checked.

Apparently, this has not happened, or was not done carefully enough. Thus, The death of Mao. The Tangshan earthquake and the birth of the New China is full of mistakes. The distance from Tangshan to Hebei is not 800 miles (p. 169), but 465 km (289 miles); Henan Province does not border on Beijing, but Hebei does. The system of Foreign Exchange Certificates was not abolished in 1998, but on January 1, 1995. The 2008 Sichuan earthquake struck at 2:28 PM, not 2:48 PM. These are just some of the many facts that jump into the readers eye, which suggest that careful checking of other facts may reveal many more inaccuracies. Many of these facts can easily be checked.

Furthermore, some facts are circumspect, with questionable accuracy or apparent irrelevance. In a chapter describing the famine caused by the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s - early 1960s it is rather difficult to tell what the relevance is of the fact that "bad families" in 1976 were entitled to 500 kg rice and 50 kg of cooking oil for a family unit of six people. Officially, in 1960, "office workers were entitled to 30 pounds of grain per person per month, labourers slightly more (...) and two ounces of cooking oil" (source: The Man on Mao's Right. From Harvard Yard to Tiananmen Square. My Life inside China's Foreign Ministry by Ji Chaozhu, published in 2008. In 1984, rice consuption in China stood at 104 kg per person per year.

Another problem with The death of Mao. The Tangshan earthquake and the birth of the New China is that it lacks a clear focus. The book tries to deal with two historical events, which would each better be served separately. This indecisiveness, most likely pushed by the publisher, is reflected in the numerous titles by which the book was published in different editions, e.g. Heaven Cracks, Earth Shakes: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Death of Mao's China, The Death of Mao: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Birth of the New China and The Death of Mao: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Birth of the New China. Obviously, the "Death of Mao" is not the same as "the Death of Mao's China". The use of the term "the New China" is quite inaccurate when writing about the modern history of China, as the "New China" is defined as the founding of the People's Republic of China. These confusing titles are the result of the faint traditional Chinese notion that earthquakes and other natural disasters are an indication that the ruling dynasty has lost "the mandate of heaven". Palmer very clearly want to force this link onto the readers' consciousness.

The structure of the book consists of six chapters, alternating dealing with the Tangshan Earthquake and the history of China under Chaiman Mao. In chapter 7, named "Aftershocks" the author describes China's history since 1976. This chapter consists of unashamed China-bashing, a compilation of facts, rumour and hearsay to demonstrate that "nothing changed fundamentally: The birth of the New China by Caesarian section in the Square of Heavenly Peace.

It is to be hoped that Mr Palmer spends a little bit more time on checking his facts when writing about China, and be more concerned with the quality of his work than sales.



Other books I have read by James Palmer:
The Bloody White Baron

The burning forest. Essays on Chinese culture and politics
Finished reading: 26 April 2013



Simon Leys, pseudonym for Pierre Ryckmans, persona non grata in the People's Republic of China, is a China hater. Generations of sinologists, like Ryckmans, who were taught in sinology departments of Western universities or in Taiwan throughout the 1950s till well into the 1990 were lectured by Chinese Professors and lecturers to whom the PRC formed the personification of evil, a sense they neatly impregnated into the minds of their students. These university lecturers grew up and were taught under the old, imperial system, and already lived in the West or fled China which was suffering from its Civil War, or the subsequent Chinese Revolution, which led to the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. To these sinologists, Communism in the first place, and with it the Umwertung aller Werte that took place over two decades, culminating in the Great Proletarian Revolution, was the absolute horror.

While the ulterior motive of the Cultural Revolution may have been a power struggle, there are also theorists, such as MacFarquhar & Schoenhals, who suggest that the cultural destruction, effected by the Cultural revolution, did also have a positive effect by removing cultural traditions which had become shackles, and ultimately break down cultural capital that may have created a sense of class differences in the minds of the Chinese people. In that sense, we should not only focus on the destruction of material culture, but also the destruction of immaterial culture such as the pride of the intelligentsia, ancestor veneration and various other immaterial forms of cultural differences.

True to the spirit of revolution, "high culture" was replaced by "low culture", and while the appreciation of Chinese folk art and primitivism has its parallels in Western art of the same period, the destruction of "upper class" cultural capital was particularly resented by representatives of that class who had evaded or escaped the Chinese Revolution.

Simon Leys was particularly active publishing about Chinese culture and politics during the two decades from the 1970s through 1990s. His later work, while still referring to Chinese culture, is more diversified, including literary criticism closer to home.

Leys critical work about China almost always consists of a toxic mixture of superb literary criticism of some (obscure) Chinese poet or cultural phenomenon, interspersed with essays about "Human rights in China" or other politically motivated essays. Thus, The burning forest. Essays on Chinese culture and politics contains wonderful essays on Chinese Classical Aesthetics, Matteo Ricci, Père Huc and Lu Xun, to represent the former, alongside essays about Human rights in China, the death of Lin Biao, the politics of Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong, and a section devoted to criticizing the so-called "fellow-travelers", in the form of an essay about Han Suyin and the so-called China experts.

Simon Leys is a persona non grata in the People's Republic of China, as in Chinese eyes he is against China. His criticism is too offensive. However, as I argued elsewhere, in his heart, Simon Leys is FOR China, perhaps not exactly this stage of China's history, but surely its cultural heritage of more than five thousand years, which Leys merely hopes to kindle.



Other books I have read by Simon Leys :
Chinese Shadows
De nieuwe kleren van voorzitter Mau. Kroniek van de culturele revolutie

048. The badlands. Decadent playground of Old Peking
Finished reading: 30 April 2013



Besides differences in dealing with historical artefacts and monuments, Chinese people are also more selective in what to preserve. Hence, Chinese historians do not only treat the cultural heritage of imperialist powers into China with disdain, they deliberately neglect the morally inferior sides of that Western culture, such as the decadence of foreign culture in brothels and opium dens near the Legation Quarter in Beijing. Paul French small publication The badlands. Decadent playground of Old Peking tries to fill up that void.

In The badlands. Decadent playground of Old Peking, Paul French describes the history of a section of Peking located just to the east of the Legation Quarter, within the Tartar City. The year is 1937.

Paul French has done the admirable job of tracking down eye witnesses who have been able to tell him, and even supply photographs of the "Red Light District" of pre-revolutionary Peking. In this part of the historical centre of Beijing, several opium dens and Houses of Sing-Song girls were located within walking distance from the Foreign Embassies. But the foreigners who lived in this quarter were among the poorest of the poor, suffering from an alcohol or opium addiction. They would earn their money with song and dance or gambling.

The badlands. Decadent playground of Old Peking is a small monograph of a part of history which, it seems, the Chinese would rather prefer to forget or blot out. The paucity of source materials can be clearly felt, but Paul French has an engaging style of writing which tells the reader about life on the volcano, just before the Japanese invasion of Beijing which would tumble China into the Second World War and subsequent Civil War which for one and all closed that chapter of foreign history in China.

Nice review of The Badlands, Edwin.

The Rise of Modern China ,Sixth Edition by Immanuel C Y Hsu,

a highly recommended readable book about China from 1600 to 2000. Many good reviews about the book. A very comprehensive,unbiased account, excellent for layman's reader to enjoy reading even though it is a very good book for "textbook" reading. I will rate this book, five stars, inexpensive price for a good content.

Strictly books on 2Oth Century China, try Harrison E Salibury touching many issues on Modern China.

Discovering History in China by Paula Cohen

Golden Inches-The China Memoir of Grace Service, edited by her son John S. Service will start off the 20th century for you. This memoir describes the travels of two young Berkeley graduates in 1905 who go to remote parts of China on behalf of the YMCA just as the Chinese Revolution (1911) begins to change China forever. Very descriptive with a wonderful map on the inside cover and further reading suggestions by the editor, whose birth and childhood are part of this true adventure story.

Empress Dowager Cixi: the concubine who launched modern China by Jung Chang is an excellent way to learn the history of China from 1852 to 1908. Although it is non-fiction, perhaps because of it's focus on Cixi as a person, it reads like fiction despite it's 370 pages.