The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1832-1914 - Hardcover

Bickers, Robert

3.49

126 ratings by Goodreads

9780713997491: The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1832-1914

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0713997494 ISBN 13: 9780713997491

Publisher: Penguin Global, 2011

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In the early nineteenth century China remained almost untouched by British and European powers - but as new technology started to change this balance, foreigners gathered like wolves around the weakening Qing Empire. Would the Chinese suffer the fate of much of the rest of the world, carved into pieces by Europeans? Or could they adapt rapidly enough to maintain their independence? This important and compelling book explains the roots of China's complex relationship with the West by illuminating a dramatic, colourful and sometimes shocking period of the country's history.

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About the Author:

Robert Bickers is the author of the highly-acclaimed Empire Made Me. He has written extensively on Chinese history and is currently Professor of History at the University of Bristol. To write The Scramble for China he has travelled extensively, visiting many of the haunting sites scattered across China that feature in the book.

Review:

Powerful, astute and readable ... meticulously researched in contemporary English-language records and journals, and written with flair and feeling, its rhetoric eschews rant and is never misplaced -- John Keay * Literary Review * Compellingly erudite and clear-sighted history -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times * At every airport bookshop, the business traveller is offered shelves of volumes that purport to tell us how an emerging, powerful China will deal with the world, and how the rest of us should make the most of the commercial opportunities opened up by its rise. Those who wish to understand these issues more closely might be better advised to read this fair and fascinating account -- Chris Patten * Financial Times *

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