The Middle Kingdom

Four thousand years of history. One unbroken civilization. The complete story of China - from the first emperors to Xi Jinping. No other civilization on earth has risen, fallen, and rebuilt itself so many times around the same enduring core. The Middle Kingdom tells that whole epic story in a single, sweeping volume - from the Neolithic villages of the Yellow River to the superpower rivalry of the twenty-first century - and shows how the deep past still shapes the China of today. This is narrative history at its most ambitious: clear, vivid, and grounded in the facts, carrying the reader across the dynasties, the revolutions, the great wars, and the ideas that made China what it is. Inside you will discover:• The emperors and dynasties - Qin Shi Huang and his buried Terracotta Army, the golden age of the Tang, the Song economic miracle that gave the world gunpowder, printing, and the compass, and the long reigns of the Ming and Qing.• The people who changed history - Confucius, the First Emperor, Empress Wu Zetian, Genghis and Kublai Khan, the admiral Zheng He, Sun Yat-sen, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Xi Jinping.• The wars that remade the country - the Warring States, the Mongol conquest, the Opium Wars, the catastrophic Taiping Rebellion, the Japanese invasion, and the civil war that birthed the People’s Republic.• The century of humiliation and the great rejuvenation - how a proud empire was brought low by foreign powers, and how it clawed its way back to wealth and global power.• China today - the rise of Xi Jinping, the surveillance state, the Belt and Road, Taiwan, the US-China rivalry, and the economic and demographic storms now testing the world’s second superpower. Woven through the chronological narrative are the threads that explain why China developed as it did: the Mandate of Heaven, the examination system that selected the empire’s rulers by merit, the inventions the world owes to China, and the recurring rhythm of unity and division that still drives Chinese politics. Whether you are a student, a traveler, a business or policy reader, or simply curious about the country reshaping the modern world, The Middle Kingdom is the one book that brings four thousand years into focus - and makes sense of the China of the present. Discover how China became China, and what it may become next.