This global history as the Chinese would write it gives brilliant and unconventional insights for understanding China's role in the world, especially the drive to "Make China Great Again." We in the West routinely ask: "What does China want?" The answer is quite simple: the superpower status it always had, but briefly lost. In this colorful, informative story filled with fascinating characters, epic battles, influential thinkers, and decisive moments, we come to understand how the Chinese view their own history and how its narrative is distinctly different from that of Western civilization. More important, we come to see how this unique Chinese history of the world shapes China's economic policy, attitude toward the United States and the rest of the world, relations with its neighbors, positions on democracy and human rights, and notions of good government. As the Chinese see it, for as far back as anyone can remember, China had the richest economy, the strongest military, and the most advanced philosophy, culture, and technology. The collision with the West knocked China's historical narrative off course for the first time, as its 5,000-year reign as an unrivaled superpower came to an ignominious end. Ever since, the Chinese have licked their wounds and fixated on returning their country to its former greatness, restoring the Chinese version of its place in the world as they had always known it. For the Chinese, the question was never if they could reclaim their former dominant position in the world, but when.

"Bradley is sharp and rueful, and a voice for a more seasoned, constructive vision of our international relations with East Asia." --Christian Science Monitor James Bradley introduces us to the prominent Americans--including FDR's grandfather, Warren Delano--who in the 1800s made their fortunes in the China opium trade. Meanwhile, American missionaries sought a myth: noble Chinese peasants eager to Westernize. The media propagated this mirage, and FDR believed that supporting Chiang Kai-shek would make China America's best friend in Asia. But Chiang was on his way out and when Mao Zedong instead came to power, Americans were shocked, wondering how we had "lost China." From the 1850s to the origins of the Vietnam War, Bradley reveals how American misconceptions about China have distorted our policies and led to the avoidable deaths of millions. The China Mirage dynamically explores the troubled history that still defines U.S.-Chinese relations today.

By the author of Destiny Disrupted: an enlightening, accessible history of modern Afghanistan from the Afghan point of view, showing how Great Power conflicts have interrupted its ongoing, internal struggle to take form as a nation

In October 1934, the Chinese Communist Army found itself facing annihilation, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Nationalist soldiers. Rather than surrender, 86,000 Communists embarked on an epic flight to safety. Only thirty were women. Their trek would eventually cover 4,000 miles over 370 days. Under enemy fire they crossed highland awamps, climbed Tibetan peaks, scrambled over chain bridges, and trudged through the sands of the western deserts. Fewer than 10,000 of them would survive, but remarkably all of the women would live to tell the tale. Unbound is an amazing story of love, friendship, and survival written by a new master of adventure narrative.

The rise of China is no doubt one of the most important events in world economic history since the Industrial Revolution. Mainstream economics, especially the institutional theory of economic development based on a dichotomy of extractive vs. inclusive political institutions, is highly inadequate in explaining China's rise. This book argues that only a radical reinterpretation of the history of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the West (as incorrectly portrayed by the institutional theory) can fully explain China's growth miracle and why the determined rise of China is unstoppable despite its current "backward" financial system and political institutions. Conversely, China's spectacular and rapid transformation from an impoverished agrarian society to a formidable industrial superpower sheds considerable light on the fundamental shortcomings of the institutional theory and mainstream "blackboard" economic models, and provides more-accurate reevaluations of historical episodes such as Africa's enduring poverty trap despite radical political and economic reforms, Latin America's lost decades and frequent debt crises, 19th century Europe's great escape from the Malthusian trap, and the Industrial Revolution itself. Contents: IntroductionKey Steps Taken by China to Set Off an Industrial RevolutionShedding Light on the Nature and Cause of the Industrial RevolutionWhy is China's Rise Unstoppable?Wha's Wrong with the Washington Consensus and the Institutional Theories?Case Study of Yong Lian: A Poor Village's Path to Becoming a Modern Steel TownConclusion: A New Stage Theory of Economic Development Readership: Academics, undergraduate and graduates students, journalists and professionals interested in economic development, the history of the Industrial Revolution, and especially China's economic transformation and industrial growth, as well as the political economy of governance.

“If you are interested in how Asia became an economic tiger, read The Miracle.” —New York Times An international bestseller, The Miracle by business journalist Michael Schuman offers a fascinating exploration of the most meaningful and far-reaching global event since World War II: the economic ascent of the Asian continent. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer calls The Miracle, “An amazing story and it’s all true,” while the New York Times praises Schuman for being, “not just a skilled reporter [but] also a gifted journalistic storyteller.” The Miracle is essential reading for anyone who truly wants to understand today’s—and tomorrow’s—world.

The United States is in the midst of a new cold war with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and America is losing. That claim, at the core of Michael Sobolik’s new book Countering China’s Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance, challenges the Washington, D.C. conventional wisdom about U.S.-China relations. Officials in Washington are reacting to the CCP and playing defense. Like America’s efforts to contain the Soviet Union in the twentieth-century Cold War, the United States needs a strategic vision to overcome the CCP. Sobolik offers a plan for American victory over the CCP and presents a roadmap to sabotage the crux of the CCP’s foreign policy: the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). At its core, the BRI is not an economic venture. It is a geopolitical gambit. Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s “project of the century” has entered its second phase: leveraging yesterday’s investments for today’s political and military ends. Xi will never do away with the BRI because it is strengthening Beijing’s strategic position from Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands to Africa and Latin America. The BRI is the apotheosis of the CCP’s grand strategy. America needs a blueprint to take it down. Sobolik provides this blueprint by identifying the BRI’s core weakness: imperial overstretch. After identifying China’s penchant for empire-building, he identifies the BRI’s key weaknesses globally and traces them back to the CCP’s vulnerabilities at home. Sobolik’s work offers policymakers a plan to go on the offense and win America’s new cold war.