Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC.

The Story of China is a lengthy history covering 4,000 years of Chinese history. The throughline through the work is how the past and the present are tied together, and elements of current China can be traced back to events from decades, centuries, and millennia past. It begins with a moving description of the last instance of sacred solstice rites by the Emperor before the world-shattering events of the 20th century and how those rituals tie back to the Bronze Age. In addition to addressing major events, a substantial amount of the text is devoted to excerpted text from philosophers, government workers, and other writers of each era, including women and accounts from ordinary people as available. The author's documentary background shows through the occasional detailed descriptions of the modern cities overlaid on historic places. While these additions occasionally bog down the text, the end result is a rich, nuanced, and enjoyable history.

It's hard to pick favorite sections, but here are just a few:
-the lush descriptions of cosmopolitan Song-era Kaifeng had me swooning in delight. If I ever time travel, I want to go here/then, and I really want to see the amazing scroll Festival on the River (Quingming shanghe tu).
-the travels of Xu Xiake from the Late Ming, the most famous traveller in China
-the surprisingly nuanced portrayal of Mao (as the book sums up by quoting Chen Yun, "Had Mao died in 1956 he would be an immportal; in 1966 still a great man but flawed. But he died in 1976. Alas, what can one say?")

The Story of China will invite comparison most readily to the PBS documentary series of the same name and to Superpower Interrupted by Michael A. Schuman , another sweeping history of China published in 2020. I can't comment on the documentary series since I haven't watched it, but I read Superpower Interrupted a few months ago. The two books have substantial similarities— both are 2020 comprehensive histories of China for a western audience. If a reader has the bandwidth, I think it's well worth reading both. They bring a different take, and I found pleasure in reading them so close together since elements of The Story of China nicely emphasized points made in Superpower Interrupted. The Story of China is definitely more meandering, especially with the many paragraphs of excerpted writings and modern descriptions, so even though the books have similar page counts, it felt a lot longer. I'd recommend Superpower Interrupted for those looking for a history much more targeted on drawing influences from historical China to the present.

Excellent, comprehensive resource on China in a very concise form.

I was thrilled to receive the ARC of this book; as a China Studies graduate, I'm obsessed with learning about this complex country. The one downside of studying this astonishing nation is that I'm often ashamed to find myself confused by it's long history and the various dynasties, emperors and names. That's why I really needed a book like Michael Wood's "The Story of China" which is long enough to be comprehensive, but short enough to actually keep my interest.

To be fair, I was wary of reading such a specific book by a historian whose "special interest was Anglo-Saxon history" (from his bio)- in other words, Wood is not an expert on China. However, I didn't find any errors in his book, and although I'm not an expert either, I believe it can be fully trusted. I'm glad I reached for it because unlike a history book, Wood's work reads in a more engaging way which actually felt like something I would read for pleasure.

*Thank you to the Publisher for a free advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

"In the freezing December of 1899, two days before the winter solstice, the Guangxu emperor left the Forbidden City through Tiananmen Gate at the head of a huge and colourful procession."

The Story of China is a highly engaging history of the many dynasties that were finally swept away by revolution. This comprehensive account starts with an examination of how geography, especially flooding, shaped local beliefs and gave rise to the Shang dynasty. The book ends with the emergence of Xi Jinping, the latest emperor in “the new dynasty founded by Mao.”

Michael Wood is a notable historian and broadcaster, also known for his films on China under the same title. Although Wood modestly admits that he is not a Sinologist, it is his passion for archaeology and presenting the voices of the people with a broadcaster’s finesse which sets this book apart from other Chinese history books. China has an uneasy record when it comes to the preservation and presentation of history, and much has been written on what was lost during the Cultural Revolution. Thus, it is a joy to read his numerous inclusions and descriptions of very recent and emerging archaeological and astronomical finds that are shedding new light on China’s ancient past and the historical facts behind myths and folklore.

Amazingly, some of these new finds include written records, such as highly relatable letters from homesick soldiers in the Qin Army and Han garrisons on Silk Road watchtowers. With his film maker’s manner, Wood regularly presents his “view from the village” derived from written records and letters from imperial officials, Buddhist monks, women sold into slavery, children, feminist authors, declining grand families and farmers to enrich our picture of how it really was to experience these massive historic events. In more recent years, personal interviews, oral traditions and family documents replace archaeology, but when possible, he interviews members of the families we were introduced to hundreds of years before. In this way, the book creates a vivid sense of immediacy and takes the reader along for the transformation of China, through all its achievements and losses. These families endured through “…population growth , overtaxation, natural disasters and that indefinable loss of group feeling that can undermine even the most powerful states…”

For readers interested in visiting China, Wood as a travel show host does not disappoint. Each chapter, generally divided by dynasty, begins with an explanation of how the area looks now if you were to visit. If you were to arrive by high speed train, walk through its alleyways and past the factories, what’s the story of that pagoda there? He then introduces what remains of this ancient history, and explains if that monument or building has been rebuilt or restored in the modern era. Then, he takes you back to that time, with careful explanations of daily life, religion, ritual, family and relationships, power struggles, war and climate. These vignettes are brought to life through quotes from those who lived it. These memorable portraits allow readers to wrap their heads around the many dynasties and the creation of this “centralised, authoritarian bureaucracy ruled by a sage-emperor and his ministers and scholars…”

I especially enjoyed the feature on the Song dynasty poet Li Qingzhao (李清照). In the happy days of her marriage, she and her husband collected antiques, books, art and enjoyed the food stalls throughout the lanes near the university. “We lived happy together those years. By the fire we made tea…and were untroubled by sudden storms…so long as we could share a cup of wine, and a sheet of fine paper.” Concubines, war, and widowhood would turn her to a career in Hangzhou publishing poetry and essays.

This is an exceptionally well balanced book. If you are interested in travel, religion, war, literature, class or gender studies, there is ample coverage of these topics through each time period. Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang are only lightly covered, as is Empress Dowager Cixi. “Sparked by drought and famine, poverty and class war, peasant risings were flaring up across China. Then, in 1894– 5, China suffered a humiliating defeat in a disastrous war with Japan. Now the colonial powers gathered like vultures: the Russians, Japanese and Germans in the north; the French and British in the south.” He uses broad strokes to describe events from the 1940s onward. I believe this is more due to scope of the text, rather than any intentional avoidance on the author’s part. However, his historical daring in tackling ancient China with a travel writer’s flair is perfection. Overall, the introduction to China’s ancient dynasties makes this book worth purchasing alone.

It is due to this balance and the above mentioned inclusion of different voices through history that you won’t be able to put this book down. It is a massive and slightly intimidating history, but nicely divided into easily consumed wedges. Wood kindly refers repeatedly to where we are at in the Western timeline (Such as who was the Roman emperor during that time period) or draws parallels to similar events in Western history, which helps the unfamiliar reader mentally locate these events in world history. For example, in describing the cultural losses of the Taiping Rebellion he says that it was “as if, let us say, the scholarly heartland of Western Europe in the 1860s had been smashed from Amsterdam to Paris, its scholars killed or dispersed and its libraries destroyed.”

Throughout the text he examines the psyche of Chinese culture and how this idea of a unified state and a feeling of togetherness has persisted through peasant uprising, warlords, Japanese invasions, civil wars, revolution, famine and trauma. He examines both the cities and countryside equally, as “China in the 1920s and ’30s was a land of extraordinary extremes and hugely uneven development. In places in the deep countryside , peasants laboured barefoot with medieval implements, faced with famine and flood, selling their children into slavery while warlords and their militias extorted and murdered at will.”

This is well handled in his overview of Tiananmen Square 1989. Wood does not make excuses nor claim to be a mind reader into what led to those decisions, but rather examines recently released 2019 documentary sources, such as memoirs, Politburo papers and diaries. He closes with a brief presentation about the continuing questions related to their credibility and significance.

The thematic backbone of this history is that China has suffered great upheavals, caused by their fellow humans and by natural disasters. The “astonishing patience and stoicism of the Chinese people” in the face of these seemingly endless catastrophic events allows the reader to understand this country’s yearning for stability, economic growth and recognition for the remarkable accomplishments of Chinese civilisation.

China is a tough subject to tackle in a succinct and interesting way, but the author did a pretty impressive job of doing both. I'm not a history buff, but this seems well researched (although every history book seems to have academic detractors). Nonetheless, this is written in a friendly, engaging style (not academic) that I welcomed. The history of China is so long and complicated. This provides a solid overview in one volume. Nicely done.

I really appreciate the ARC for review!!