49 Myths about China
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- USD 54.99
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- USD 54.99
Descripción editorial
Communism is dead in China. “China Inc.” is buying up the world. China has the United States over a barrel. The Chinese are just copycats. China is an environmental baddie, China is colonizing Africa. Mao was a monster. The end of the Communist regime is near. The 21st century belongs to China. Or does it? Marte Kjær Galtung and Stig Stenslie highlight 49 prevalent myths about China’s past, present, and future and weigh their truth or fiction. Leading an enlightening and entertaining tour, the authors debunk widespread “knowledge” about Chinese culture, society, politics, and economy. In some cases, Chinese themselves encourage mistaken impressions. But many of these myths are really about how we Westerners see ourselves, inasmuch as China or the Chinese people are depicted as what we are not. Western perceptions of the empire in the East have for centuries oscillated between sinophilia and sinophobia, influenced by historical changes in the West as much as by events in China. This timely and provocative book offers an engaging and compelling window on a rising power we often misunderstand.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
According to Galtung and Stenslie, members of the Norwegian Defence Staff, the Western view of China has fluctuated, for centuries, between sinophilia and sinophobia. Their intentions here are to undermine such myopic perceptions, and for the most part they do. Divided into five sections that range from "The Party" to "The Future," the book covers familiar myths related to China's recent past and present, as well as unfamiliar ones like the idea that the Chinese are born moneymakers. The most interesting material comes within "The People" section, especially Myth 13, which concerns the one-child policy. Galtung and Stenslie clarify the Chinese phrase's exact translation ("birth planning") while pointing out that many families find ways around it and that a surplus of males is hardly unique to China. Another section addresses how the Chinese prioritize written or oral history over physical history such as monuments. The authors tend to deemphasize the racism behind some of the myths, but do pay a great deal of attention to the cultural differences between China and Western countries. While the book offers some intriguing facts, none of the myths are given extensive enough treatment to do more than whet the appetite of the curious.
