Book Review

Author: John Keay

Publisher: Harper Press (Harper Collins)

Language: English

Pages: 592 pages

Binding: Paperback

ISBN-10: 0007221770

ISBN-13: 978-0007221776

"There is great chaos under heaven; and the situation is excellent," Chairman Mao had famously quipped. Now Mao was supposed to have brought a fresh, but an alien idea, and applied it on the teeming masses of an enigma called China. So, where was he quoting from? If he was drawing these from the centuries of Chinese experiences, or philosophy, what was he trying to say? Was he trying to marry an alien idea with the Chinese sense of opportunity? No one can say with certainty.

In fact, no one can say anything about China in certainty. Then why this Western urge to demystify and deconstruct a nation where one out of every five human being lives? Why this urge to place this nation in a mould and understand it? Why use Western point-of-view and reference points to look for a method in this sure madness? We are wary of China, and we are fearful too. We are fearful because it defeats our basic assumptions. We are fearful because we know precious little about a nation we perceive as our challenger. Ambiguity brings fear. Fear brings generalisation. And that is where every attempt to understand this nations meets its nadir. And it is here that John Keay's “China:A History” comes to rescue.

Finding a way amidst a narrative through China's tumultuous saga is almost an impossible task that historian John Keay undertook. It, therefore, comes as a pleasant surprise that he managed to give us a thorough history of such a nation in single volume. Indeed, it was a Herculean task to restrict the history of every millennium in merely 120 pages. But since you don't feel that you have missed anything, it makes Keay's achievement an achievement in truest sense of the word.

Historians swear that it is easy to tell the history of a place of which people have at least a few references through pop culture. If not, it is one heck of a handicap. Keay, the magician that he is, makes the read as breezy as it could have been.

The book deals with China's history from the earliest fragments of Xia dynasty to the last emperor. Mao also makes an appearance in the end, more as a symptom of what is to follow than the character himself. Keay has spared maximum pages for the five most important dynasties - Han, Tang, Song, Ming and Qing – and the era they represent. But whichever era you are trading through, it is Confucius influence that drives the imagination of this country. What Confucius experienced in 500 BC remains oh so relevant in today's global politik. It is not for nothing that this master of wisdom has been resurrected in people's popular imagination in every century when the final disintegration of the Chinese nation appeared so imminent.

In his journey, Keay takes us through centuries and centuries of politics, lies, deceit, triumph, celebration, progress and what not. There is a reoccurring convention of China being concerted under one emperor, then ripping off into freestanding states, then being reunited again by some or other magnetic hero. These fresh households all start out well, but after a couple of centuries or less each imperium again breaks down: there is a phase of pandemonium, then the cycle starts again. And when everything appears hunky dory, somebody or other from the steppes of Inner Mongolia, Mangolia Proper and beyond, comes down with his stout horse and daredevil heart and rips it apart.

But going through these endless sagas, Keay has been able to draw a few conclusions and, more importantly, a couple of parallels as well. "A possible verdict on Mao’s manic chairmanship might echo that applied to the Qin First Emperor, he whose great failing had been ‘not changing with the times',” quips Keay, and you think, well this guy has a point there.

The biggest achievement of Keay is to liberate the readers from Euro-centric, and now seriously overstretched, point-of-view. He has offered a way out to understand the people who look all set to dominate every possible discourse in decades to come. Buy it and read. Don't get caught embarrassingly unaware when Chinese rule the world.