At the Edge of Empire: A Family's Reckoning with China
By (Author) Edward Wong
Profile Books Ltd
Profile Books Ltd
24th September 2024
27th June 2024
Main
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
975.510049510092
Hardback
464
Width 158mm, Height 238mm, Spine 44mm
740g
'A brilliant personal account of China's borderlands and peoples' Francis Fukuyama
'A splendid journey through eighty years of Chinese history ... Edward Wong is about as knowledgeable a guide to China as a reader could ever hope to find' Barbara Demick
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 native land or his years in the People's Liberation Army under Mao. Yook Kearn Wong came of age during the Japanese occupation in World War II and the Communist revolution, when he fell under the spell of Mao's promise of a powerful China. His astonishing 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 mysterious 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, the most powerful leader since Mao. Following in his father's footsteps, he witnessed protests and civil rights struggles in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong. And he had an insider's view of the world's two superpowers meeting at a perilous crossroads.
Wong tells a moving chronicle of a family and a nation that spans nearly a century of momentous change and gives profound insight into a new authoritarian age transforming the world. A groundbreaking book, At the Edge of Empire is the essential work for understanding China today.
'A brilliant personal account of China's borderlands and peoples-Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Mongols, Tibetans ... full of insight and compassion' - Francis Fukuyama
'Astonishing ... A humane, moving story against a massive canvas of China's rise to power' - Rana Mitter, author
'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
'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
'A fascinating read ... a beautifully-written personal account of China's rise to a superpower ... vividly told' - Hsiao-Hung Pai, journalist and author
Edward Wong is a diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times. In twenty-five years at the Times, he 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 was on a team of Pulitzer Prize finalists. He has been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and a visiting professor at Princeton University and UC Berkeley. He has done fellowships at the Wilson Center and the Belfer Center at Harvard Kennedy School. He lives with his family in Washington, DC.