China: A Macro History (An East Gate Book)

Highly recommend this book to anyone that wants to have an overview of Chinese history. I like that it doesn't go into all the details of historical events (that will be very very very long..), but rather makes you think 'how did this happen' and 'why it is the way it is'. It is a small and concise history book that's worth reading several times. I do recommend to only read this if you already have some basic idea of Chinese history in terms of major events and phases.

I'm a male, Chinese-American. 26 y.o. I hardly knew/know much of my own ancestral history. This was a required text, but I'm glad I went thru it. It's a short (relatively speaking), concise text that's pretty absorbable. It gave me a good "introduction".

This is an ambitious effort to provide an overview of Chinese history. Huang divides Chinese history into 7 periods. The first is the period of state formation. The second is what Huang terms the First Empire, essentially the Qin and Han empires. This is followed by a chaotic interregnum, the Second Empire of the Sui, Tang, and Song, the Mongolian interlude, and the Third Empire of the Ming and the Qing. The final period is the one we're presently in, the destruction of traditional China and its replacement by a modern state. Huang covers the major dynastic changes, expansion of Chinese culture into the South of what is now modern China, and major intellectual trends. A good deal of the narrative, drawn from traditional chronicles, is 'top down' histories of the Imperial Courts. This is all solid. Huang's efforts to provide an overview of the major structural features of Chinese history is surprisingly traditional. Huang presents the early formation of centralized Chinese states as driven to a large extent by geographic factors,including the very long border with the nomadic peoples of central Asia. Huang then presents the Chinese state as having most of the same structural features from its Qin foundation to the end of the Qing. This is very much a traditional description of a centralized bureacracy resting on a mass of peasants and supported by an ideology stressing social stability and resistant to intellectual innovation. Huang doesn't quite project the Marxist cliche of the 'Asiatic mode of production' or other cliches of 'oriental despotism' but his analysis isn't far away from such approaches. At the same time, Huang shows that the Chinese state never developed the efficient bureaucracy and systems of taxation needed to run such a huge state, often the seed of dynastic failure. Huang presents also a rather traditional analysis of China's failure to break out of the mold of its traditional society. This is presented as a failure to develop the type of bourgeois institutions that emerged in early modern Europe. This is again a traditional, semi-Marxist analysis. In this context, Huang sees the enormous upheavals of the last 2 centuries as needed to destroy traditional society and reconstruct it on a modern basis. This type of traditional analysis has been attacked in recent years. Some economic historians, like Kenneth Pomeranz in his book The Great Divergence, present 18th century Qing China as much more similar to Europe than previously thought. Some of Huang's language, notably his consistent use of the idea of the rationality of history, has a teleological flavor.

Great overview of the Chinese history and captured the key events and their impact. It filled the gap in the first half of 20th century Chinese history also..

Being an avid reader of History, I was really extremely disappointed by this book. The theme, Macro History, seemed laudable enough, and promised some insight regarding the historical development of the China we see today. Regardless of the academic merit of the book, on which I will not comment, I found the book to be extremely poorly written. It was inconsistent in terms of its coverage of "events", and left a considerable, but indispensable, background unexplained. For example, you get no introduction as to who or what the Legalists are or why they seem to be the alternative to Confucianism, for example. In places the developments are covered in detail, but as the lead up has been only presented in broad framework, you are left with little access to the importance of the detail. The whole things needs a good edit from a strong editor, who is able to draw out the undoubted academic merit of the book, into something which is readable and informative. A small point, but irksome: I know the author is a non-English speaker, but has lived in the USA since the early 50s; however, in places the usage of terms and phraseology needs editing, as it seems terribly colloquial. For example, in one place the author tells you that the merchant used "fancy goods" to develop his friendship with the royal prince. Call me picky, but terms like this should have been weeded out in editing.

Ray Huang's "China: A Macro History" kept me up for a few nights in a row. Dr. Huang posed an extremely ambitious goal to explain fundamental differences of Western and Chinese civilizations, and to explore trends of Chinese government, military, cultural and religious institutions as they develop from legendary to modern times. The book is organized in chapters, each covering roughly a time span of the major dynasty of the Middle Kingdom. Concentration is more on trends (thus the title word "macro") then on events, more on developments of concepts rather then careers. People and events are represented inasmuch as they represent the underlining trend. As such every dynasty rise and eventual fall is represented, with credits due to each for the developments of Chinese nation. The institution of monarchy is a fascinating blend of ritual, unreal and fantastic, and idealistic, with an impressive organizational achievement in management of the country with the base of millions of agrarian households. The only grievance I have with the book is that understandably enough Dr. Huang had to skip over a lot of material (or he would risk leaving us with yet another "The Decline and fall of the Roman Empire"); however in doing so he is rarely consistent, e.g. not explaining the elemental precepts of Confucianism, organization of Chinese army and bureaucracy; and fundamental principles behind state examinations. All those, however, can be gotten from other sources, and as such will tempt the reader to explore more.

Whoever wrote this book must not only have substantial academic background for one; really experienced the hardship of Chinese life both mentally and physically for two; and most importantly the author must deviate from the traditional Chinese historians' point of view (I am not trying to judge who is right or wrong here). A lot of us who learned Chinese history, most likely we dissect this whole culture dynasty by dynasty - be it a political issue or an economical event. The biggest question we keep asking was why the Chinese, considered as the hardest working group of people on earth, always ended up being one of the poorest and most miserable group of people in history. In this book (and other books by the same author), Mr. Huang tried to show that consistently lacking solid source for tax income is the key for most of the problems. What makes the whole theory interesting is that every generation seems to be trying hard to deal with this issue but failed eventually. You have to read this book to understand why all efforts failed. Most importantly, where is China heading today? Why Deng's Open Door Policy will undoubtfully failed just like all the endeavors for the past 2500 years before 1950 even if they try hard enough, on the other hand, the same policy in late 1970's can easily boost Communist China (Communist? Aren't they suppose to be all collapsed by now?) to become the such a huge economical powerhouse. Want to know the answer? This is the best book I've read for past 10 years. Enjoy!

Late Professor Huang's review of Chinese history offers the most inspiring reading experience I have ever had. Although there are a few points which may appear a bit difficult to grasp, his unmatched depth in understanding and vision of China provides the reader with a refreshing perspective of interpreting Chinese history. This is especially true to Chinese readers who have been exposed to more or less the same interpretation of history for hundreds of years. His analysis of the so-called "blunders" and humiliation derived from Ming and Qing dynasties into early 20th century, was particularly interesting.