The Chinese Experience

This book divides close to 5 thousand years of history into sections in order to be able to present it in an understandable manner. It starts with a general overview to give historical perspective, then moves onto the roles of the Emperor and his Mandarins, the philosophical and religious experience and then the economic and cultural achievements of the Chinese. While there are many generalisations - given the number of different cultures in China this in unavoidable - you still get a rich and very interesting overview of one of the great continuous cultures of the planet. You will come away from this book with a better understanding of the sources of the strong family attachments, the rise and fall of dynasties and cultural chaos and superstition that rule much of Chinese culture even today. One thing that struck me after reading this book is how frequently history repeats itself - even today - If you want to have a better understanding of Chinese history and culture, this book should be on your reading list - The lessons of Chinese culture and history are relevant for everyone, not just history lovers.

This book is an extremely well-written overview of the major distinctives of Chinese culture throughout the centuries. I didn't realize until I read this book why so many other Chinese history/culture books have not resonated well with me. It's because all the others have tried to tell the Chinese story linearly and chronologically, which is a good way of approaching Western Civilization (The Greek period, the Roman period, the Dark Ages, the Medieval Ages, the Rennaisance, etc) but not at ALL the way to look at Chinese history, where so many ideas have remained timeless from dynasty to dynasty, and progress is not measured from one epoch to the next. This book takes a more "horizontal" approach and zeroes in on various aspects of the culture, illuminating the Chinese presuppositions and where they differ from those of the Western mind. It's lucid, entertaining, and fascinating, neither insulting nor presumptious about what the reader knows.