Description
'A brilliant personal account of China's borderlands and peoples' Francis Fukuyama 'Edward Wong is about as knowledgeable a guide to China as a reader could ever hope to find' Barbara Demick 'Finely crafted ... opens up the complexities of Chinese politics and Chinese life in a way that general readers will find fascinating' Guardian The son of Chinese immigrants in Washington, DC, Edward Wong grew up among family secrets. His father toiled in restaurants and rarely spoke of his childhood during the Japanese occupation of China and his years in the People's Liberation Army under Mao. His journey as a soldier took him from Manchuria during the Korean War to Xinjiang on the Central Asian frontier. In 1962, disillusioned with the Communist Party, he planned a desperate escape to Hong Kong. When Edward Wong became the Beijing bureau chief for The New York Times, he investigated his father's past while assessing for himself the dream of a resurgent China. He met the citizens driving the nation's astounding economic boom and global expansion - and grappling with the vortex of nationalistic rule under Xi Jinping. He witnessed protests and civil rights struggles in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, and had an insider's view of the world's two superpowers meeting at a perilous crossroads. In this essential work for understanding China today, Wong tells a moving chronicle of a family and a nation that spans nearly a century of momentous change.
The essential history of modern China, told through the story of one family
About the Author
Edward Wong is a diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times, where has served as a war correspondent in Iraq and as the Beijing bureau chief. He is the winner of the Livingston Award for international reporting, and has been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He lives with his family in Washington, DC.
Reviews
Arresting ... a family history that exposes China's authoritarian regime and an era of repression * Financial Times *
A touching family memoir... about an immigrant's yearning to understand his heritage and his family * The Spectator *
A sprawling, complex morality tale, sweeping us along. * Wall Street Journal *
A brilliant personal account of China's borderlands and peoples-Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Mongols, Tibetans ... full of insight and compassion -- Francis Fukuyama
Finely crafted ... At the Edge of Empire is valuable both on a political and personal level, and opens up the complexities of Chinese politics and Chinese life in a way that general readers will find fascinating ... deeply satisfying -- John Simpson * Guardian *
Astonishing ... A humane, moving story against a massive canvas of China's rise to power -- Rana Mitter, author * China's Good War *
Utterly gripping and original ... an unforgettable account of the country's recent past and present -- Julia Lovell, Professor of Modern China at Birkbeck College, University of London and author * Maoism: A Global History *
This sparkling book ... tells a story of greater China that is both intimately personal and fundamentally global, a journey steeped in trauma, nostalgia, and even poetry that only [Wong's] reporting talents could conjure -- Ishaan Tharoor, foreign affairs columnist * Washington Post *
In the age of the instant expert, Edward Wong is the real thing ... [A] blend of epic family memoir and deeply insightful reporting on the rise of an increasingly autocratic China under Xi Jinping -- Edward Luce, Financial Times columnist and author * The Retreat of Western Liberalism *
A fascinating read ... a beautifully-written personal account of China's rise to a superpower ... vividly told -- Hsiao-Hung Pai, journalist and author * Scattered Sand: The Story of China's Rural Migrants *
Edward Wong's exquisite family chronicle achieves a level of humane illumination that only one of America's finest reporters on China could deliver ... A profound story of modern China itself -- Evan Osnos, National Book Award-winning author * Age of Ambition *
Edward Wong is about as knowledgeable a guide to China as a reader could ever hope to find ... [Brings] it all vividly to life in a way no other book on China has for me -- Barbara Demick, author * Eat the Buddha and Nothing to Envy *
A seamless and engaging hybrid narrative that reminds us it's people who write history -- Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society and author of more than a dozen books on China, including the recent novel * My Old Home *
It is rare for a book to combine past and present, personal history and the history of a vast nation with such thoughtfulness, grace, and panache -- Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author * Our Country Friends *
A true epic and an extraordinary work of reportage. The son of two empires, Edward Wong is admirably clear-eyed in his ability to weave the personal and intimate with the monumental -- Te-Ping Chen, Wall Street Journal correspondent and author * Land of Big Numbers *
A masterpiece ... a must-read for anyone with the faintest interest in China, America's relationship with China, and the whole question of empire in the contemporary world -- John Delury, author * Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA's Covert War in China *
An absorbing new memoir [which] explores the country through a triple prism of history, geography and ancestry... stories are beautifully told and expose the contradictions of modern China * The Economist *
This book's power comes from Wong's broad sense of the patterns of Chinese history, reflected in the lives of a father and son, and from his ability to toggle effortlessly between the epic and the intimate * The Atlantic *
In telling this personal story about family memory, exile and return, the book also takes in the breadth of [China's] evolution during the 20th century * Washington Post *
Book Information
ISBN 9781788162661
Author Edward Wong
Format Paperback
Page Count 464
Imprint Profile Books Ltd
Publisher Profile Books Ltd
The essential history of modern China, told through the story of one family
About the Author
Edward Wong is a diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times, where has served as a war correspondent in Iraq and as the Beijing bureau chief. He is the winner of the Livingston Award for international reporting, and has been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He lives with his family in Washington, DC.
Reviews
Arresting ... a family history that exposes China's authoritarian regime and an era of repression * Financial Times *
A touching family memoir... about an immigrant's yearning to understand his heritage and his family * The Spectator *
A sprawling, complex morality tale, sweeping us along. * Wall Street Journal *
A brilliant personal account of China's borderlands and peoples-Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Mongols, Tibetans ... full of insight and compassion -- Francis Fukuyama
Finely crafted ... At the Edge of Empire is valuable both on a political and personal level, and opens up the complexities of Chinese politics and Chinese life in a way that general readers will find fascinating ... deeply satisfying -- John Simpson * Guardian *
Astonishing ... A humane, moving story against a massive canvas of China's rise to power -- Rana Mitter, author * China's Good War *
Utterly gripping and original ... an unforgettable account of the country's recent past and present -- Julia Lovell, Professor of Modern China at Birkbeck College, University of London and author * Maoism: A Global History *
This sparkling book ... tells a story of greater China that is both intimately personal and fundamentally global, a journey steeped in trauma, nostalgia, and even poetry that only [Wong's] reporting talents could conjure -- Ishaan Tharoor, foreign affairs columnist * Washington Post *
In the age of the instant expert, Edward Wong is the real thing ... [A] blend of epic family memoir and deeply insightful reporting on the rise of an increasingly autocratic China under Xi Jinping -- Edward Luce, Financial Times columnist and author * The Retreat of Western Liberalism *
A fascinating read ... a beautifully-written personal account of China's rise to a superpower ... vividly told -- Hsiao-Hung Pai, journalist and author * Scattered Sand: The Story of China's Rural Migrants *
Edward Wong's exquisite family chronicle achieves a level of humane illumination that only one of America's finest reporters on China could deliver ... A profound story of modern China itself -- Evan Osnos, National Book Award-winning author * Age of Ambition *
Edward Wong is about as knowledgeable a guide to China as a reader could ever hope to find ... [Brings] it all vividly to life in a way no other book on China has for me -- Barbara Demick, author * Eat the Buddha and Nothing to Envy *
A seamless and engaging hybrid narrative that reminds us it's people who write history -- Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society and author of more than a dozen books on China, including the recent novel * My Old Home *
It is rare for a book to combine past and present, personal history and the history of a vast nation with such thoughtfulness, grace, and panache -- Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author * Our Country Friends *
A true epic and an extraordinary work of reportage. The son of two empires, Edward Wong is admirably clear-eyed in his ability to weave the personal and intimate with the monumental -- Te-Ping Chen, Wall Street Journal correspondent and author * Land of Big Numbers *
A masterpiece ... a must-read for anyone with the faintest interest in China, America's relationship with China, and the whole question of empire in the contemporary world -- John Delury, author * Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA's Covert War in China *
An absorbing new memoir [which] explores the country through a triple prism of history, geography and ancestry... stories are beautifully told and expose the contradictions of modern China * The Economist *
This book's power comes from Wong's broad sense of the patterns of Chinese history, reflected in the lives of a father and son, and from his ability to toggle effortlessly between the epic and the intimate * The Atlantic *
In telling this personal story about family memory, exile and return, the book also takes in the breadth of [China's] evolution during the 20th century * Washington Post *
Book Information
ISBN 9781788162661
Author Edward Wong
Format Paperback
Page Count 464
Imprint Profile Books Ltd
Publisher Profile Books Ltd
