Bibliograph

1368, China and the making of the modern world, Ali Humayun Akhtar

Type

Label

1368, China and the making of the modern world, Ali Humayun Akhtar

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Illustrations

illustrationsmaps

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

1368

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

1261879774

Responsibility statement

Ali Humayun Akhtar

Sub title

China and the making of the modern world

Summary

"The establishment of the Great Ming dynasty in 1368 was a monumental event in world history. A century before Columbus, Beijing sent a series of diplomatic missions across the South China Sea and Indian Ocean that paved the way for China's first modern global era. 1368 maps China's ascendance from the embassies of Admiral Zheng He to the arrival of European mariners and the shock of the Opium Wars. In Ali Humayun Akhtar's new picture of world history, China's current rise evokes an earlier epoch, one that sheds light on where Beijing is heading today. Spectacular accounts in Persian and Ottoman Turkish describe palaces of silk and jade in Beijing's Forbidden City. Malay legends recount stories of Chinese princesses arriving in Melaka with gifts of porcelain and gold. During Europe's Age of Exploration, Iberian mariners charted new passages to China, which the Dutch and British East India Companies transformed into lucrative tea routes. But during the British Industrial Revolution, the rise of steam engines and factories allowed the export of the very commodities once imported from China. By the end of the Opium Wars and the arrival of Commodore Perry in Japan, Chinese and Japanese reformers called for their own industrial revolutions to propel them into the twentieth century. What has the world learned from China since the Ming, and how did China reemerge in the 1970s as a manufacturing superpower? Akhtar's book provides much-needed context for understanding China's rise today and the future of its connections with both the West and a resurgent Asia."

Table Of Contents

Preface -- Five hundred years across the Indian Ocean and South China Sea -- Global Beijing under the Great Ming -- Picturing China in Persian along the silk routes -- Trading with China in Malay along the spice routes -- Europe's search for the Spice Islands -- A Sino-Jesuit tradition of science and mapmaking -- Porcelain across the Dutch Empire -- Tea across the British Empire -- China's eclipse and Japan's modernization -- Epilogue : a new turn to the East

resource.variantTitle

Thirteen sixty-eight

Classification