None
A brilliant account of seven centuries of the Western fascination with China, told by one of America’s greatest, and most prolific, historians of China. Spence (Yale; The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, 1994; The Search for Modern China, 1990; etc.) is a confident and experienced enough historian to admit what he doesn't know; here he doesn't know why China has had and retains such a hold on the Western imagination. Nonetheless, the fascination is there: from Marco Polo’s 13th-century account of the court of Kublai Khan to Nixon’s and Kissinger’s musings on the mystery and greatness of Mao, from the 19th-century French passion for all things Chinese to the fiction of Kafka, Borges, and Calvino. Spence is also a subtle enough historian to not attempt to bring some overall grand meaning to his narrative. Rather, he presents what he terms “sightings,” to imply the fleeting, often woefully inaccurate depictions of China that have been delivered in the West. Such sightings have allowed us to get our bearings, or seemingly so. Whether China has been praised as enlightened and progressive or reviled as cruel and despotic (and both have dominated Western thinking on China, often simultaneously), the purpose has been, inevitably perhaps, to examine ourselves, the West. And so, to mix an aural metaphor with the visual, understanding the China of the West requires, for Spence, understanding “the ear that hears both what it wants and what it is expecting.” Spence’s prodigious and eclectic scholarship is on full display here, ranging freely over seven centuries of the sightings of adventurers, novelists, politicians. Some of his sources are well known (Karl Marx, Max Weber, Mark Twain), some are more obscure (the French novelist Pierre Loti, American writer Eliza Jane Gilbert); yet within Spence’s skilled writing they all intrigue. Seldom does scholarship this detailed grab the reader so. This has always been Spence’s genius. A wonderful book. (Author tour)
None NonePub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-393-02747-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
A timely contribution to the discussion of a crucial issue.
A history of the right to vote in America.
Since the nation’s founding, many Americans have been uneasy about democracy. Law and policy expert Waldman (The Second Amendment: A Biography, 2014, etc.), president of New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, offers a compelling—and disheartening—history of voting in America, from provisions of the Constitution to current debates about voting rights and campaign financing. In the Colonies, only white male property holders could vote and did so in public, by voice. With bribery and intimidation rampant, few made the effort. After the Revolution, many states eliminated property requirements so that men over 21 who had served in the militia could vote. But leaving voting rules to the states disturbed some lawmakers, inciting a clash between those who wanted to restrict voting and those “who sought greater democracy.” That clash fueled future debates about allowing freed slaves, immigrants, and, eventually, women to vote. In 1878, one leading intellectual railed against universal suffrage, fearing rule by “an ignorant proletariat and a half-taught plutocracy.” Voting corruption persisted in the 19th century, when adoption of the secret ballot “made it easier to stuff the ballot box” by adding “as many new votes as proved necessary.” Southern states enacted disenfranchising measures, undermining the 15th Amendment. Waldman traces the campaign for women’s suffrage; the Supreme Court’s dismal record on voting issues (including Citizens United); and the contentious fight to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which “became a touchstone of consensus between Democrats and Republicans” and was reauthorized four times before the Supreme Court “eviscerated it in 2013.” Despite increased access to voting, over the years, turnout has fallen precipitously, and “entrenched groups, fearing change, have…tried to reduce the opportunity for political participation and power.” Waldman urges citizens to find a way to celebrate democracy and reinvigorate political engagement for all.
A timely contribution to the discussion of a crucial issue.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1648-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
Thus the second most costly war in American history, whose “outcome seemed little short of a miracle.” A sterling account.
A master storyteller’s character-driven account of a storied year in the American Revolution.
Against world systems, economic determinist and other external-cause schools of historical thought, McCullough (John Adams, 2001, etc.) has an old-fashioned fondness for the great- (and not-so-great) man tradition, which may not have much explanatory power but almost always yields better-written books. McCullough opens with a courteous nod to the customary villain in the story of American independence, George III, who turns out to be a pleasant and artistically inclined fellow who relied on poor advice; his Westmoreland, for instance, was a British general named Grant who boasted that with 5,000 soldiers he “could march from one end of the American continent to the other.” Other British officers agitated for peace, even as George wondered why Americans would not understand that to be a British subject was to be free by definition. Against these men stood arrayed a rebel army that was, at the least, unimpressive; McCullough observes that New Englanders, for instance, considered washing clothes to be women’s work and so wore filthy clothes until they rotted, with the result that Burgoyne and company had a point in thinking the Continentals a bunch of ragamuffins. The Americans’ military fortunes were none too good for much of 1776, the year of the Declaration; at the slowly unfolding battle for control over New York, George Washington was moved to despair at the sight of sometimes drunk soldiers running from the enemy and of their officers “who, instead of attending to their duty, had stood gazing like bumpkins” at the spectacle. For a man such as Washington, to be a laughingstock was the supreme insult, but the British were driven by other motives than to irritate the general—not least of them reluctance to give up a rich, fertile and beautiful land that, McCullough notes, was providing the world’s highest standard of living in 1776.
Thus the second most costly war in American history, whose “outcome seemed little short of a miracle.” A sterling account.Pub Date: June 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7432-2671-2
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
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