READERS RUSHING FOR BOOKS ON WORLD HISTORY

Changing tastes key reason for works’ popularity

Editor’s note: In a world facing increasing challenges on a number of fronts, such as isolationism and protectionism, different nations and cultures now have a stronger need and desire to get to know one another. In this series “China and the World: Learning and Understanding”, we look at efforts that have been and are being made globally to broaden cross-border communication and study. This article is the third in the series.

In 2006, then high school student and history enthusiast Qiu Yang bought a copy of the newly published Chinese edition of A Global History: From Prehistory to the 21st Century.

Written by Leften Stavros Stavrianos, a Greek-Canadian historian, the book was originally designed for courses in world hisand tory or civilization, but it became highly sought after when it arrived in China.

Qiu spoke highly of the book and said that rather than taking a regional or national view, Stavrianos used a new global approach viewed world history as a unified whole, tracing major forces, such as Greco-Roman civilization, as well as events or movements having profound global impact.

Qiu said the book’s popularity in China was also due to its being a relatively rare publication, as there were not so many high-quality works available that addressed global history.

In just 12 years, the best-seller list has changed as more Chinese now prefer to read books on the history and culture of the world or on foreign countries. This has seen more such titles enter the local market.

Collecting offline and online sales data from more than 6,000 bookstores nationwide, statistics from OpenBook, a leading provider in Beijing of data and information services for the industry, show the increasing varieties of titles on nonChinese history.

In 2014, out of 30 best-sellers, only four books featured history and culture outside of China. Last year, the figure had risen to 11. Accompanied by illustrations,

The Shortest History of Europe by Australian historian John Hirst offers a rapid overview of European civilization from the classical and medieval eras to the modern age.

Xu Endan, an editor from Guangxi Normal University Press who was responsible for the book’s introduction and distribution in China, said the company sold more than 1 million copies, including paperbacks and e-books, from 2011 to last year, a record for a history book. The Silk Roads: A New History of

the World by British historian Peter Frankopan was first published in 2015 in English, and introduced to China a year later.

The book, which states that the Persian empire was at the center of the rise of humanity, attracted millions of Chinese readers and quickly entered the 2017 annual best-sellers list of Amazon China.

It was also selected last year by Amazon China as one of the 250 most influential books to be translated into Chinese over the past 40 years, ranking No 4 and being the only history book on the list, according to the company’s website.

In addition to works on general world history, those on national and regional history, or even niche areas such as the story of Western art, are attracting Chinese readers. The History of the Decline and Fall

of the Roman Empire by British historian Edward Gibbon has been reprinted three times in less than two months after being published in China, said Wang Min, an editor from Dookbook, a publishing agency in Shanghai with the exclusive rights to the Chinese translation.

The volumes relate 1,300 years of the Roman Empire from the perspectives of politics, economy, the military and culture. They trace Western civilization, as well as Islamic and Mongolian conquests, from the height of the Roman Empire to the fall of Byzantium.

In a more specialist field, To Everyone’s Western Art History is still popular after being revised in 2010.

Written by artist Jiang Xun, also known as Chiang Hsun, the book introduces various artists and their works from the prehistoric period through to ancient Greek and Roman times, and on to the modern era.

Readers on the rise

Book industry experts said the changing tastes of Chinese readers is one of the top reasons behind the popularity of historical works.

In 2017, 80.3 percent of China’s population was identified as readers. This included reading books, newspapers or digital publications, and the figure was slightly higher than the 79.9 percent in 2016, according to the 15th National Reading Survey released by the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication last year.

Another report, from e-commerce giant Alibaba, shows that last year the country’s reading population rose by nearly 30 million.

The rising numbers have also highlighted readers’ diverse tastes, and Wang from Dookbook said this is an inevitable result of the continued improvement in people’s reading levels.

She said that in recent years the number of works on history subject to copyright has risen and the amount in advance payments is also growing, reflecting the level of optimism in books on foreign history.

“The emergence of some best-selling books on foreign historical themes, such as Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (by Yuval Noah Harari) and Frankopan’s The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, have also shown that a rising number of readers want to read books on foreign history,” she said.

Guo Qun, a former publisher who handled the launch and distribution of Jiang’s To Everyone’s Western Art

History, said that in recent years reading classical works, including history books, appears to have become a trend.

More younger people are enjoying history books, especially those on general or brief histories, she said, as such works will enable them to gain more knowledge in a short period of time.

“The threshold for reading a general or brief history book is not that high, and is more suitable for people who just want to have a rough idea of the past, or do not have much time to dig deeply into a particular area,” she added.

Xu Nan, 29, who works for an internet technology company in Beijing and bought a Kindle version of Frankopan’s book, said it makes her commuting time more interesting and fulfilling.

“I was a science student in high school and didn’t learn that much about history,” she said. “But this book is quite friendly to entry-level readers who want to know some history without delving too deeply into it, just like me.”

She said the book gives her a systematic and logical view of world history from the perspective of the ancient Silk Road, providing a relatively objective evaluation of the past as well as pointing the way to understanding current global affairs and future development.

“The language is plain but vivid, like reading stories, which is really good because I don’t have to think too much, especially after finishing a full day’s work,” Xu said.

She added that the chapter headings enable her to choose those she is interested in.

Guo said that reading history can provide talking points. “When you don’t know what to say, particularly during networking, you can always talk about history,” she said.

For example, she said some readers of To Everyone’s Western Art History are white-collar workers in cities with advanced economic development, such as Beijing and Shanghai, who want to obtain such knowledge for “personal interest or social need”.

“The author wrote the book in simple but elegant language, and it is more like a pop-science work on Western art for those with little or no knowledge of the subject,” she said, adding by “lowering the threshold”, more people will become interested in the history of art, and more willing to learn in-depth content.

Xu agreed, and joked that after reading Frankopan’s book she was able to understand world news and could discuss topics with colleagues.

Sun Qian’ao, a marketing editor from CITIC Press Group, a leading publishing house in China, said reading history books can help people familiarize themselves with the world outside their daily lives, and sometimes works on regional or national history can even act as travel guides.

Sun, a member of the planning team for The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish

Empire by John Patrick Kinross, said many readers have started to pay close attention to Turkey as it continues to appear in the news.

With overseas travel increasing in recent years, many people have read the book before traveling to Turkey, Sun said.

Wang Jixuan, a 35-year-old travel enthusiast from Beijing, said he bought To Everyone’s Western Art

History before he set off for Europe, and used the book as a guide when he visited museums.

“I think the book is not only about artists and paintings, but also about the history behind the art, which gives me a better understanding of my destinations,” Wang said.

Editors’ choices

Typically, editors follow social media to trace readers’ changing needs and appetites so that they can select books.

Sun, from CITIC, said the company conducts data analysis on sales at least once a week, goes through readers’ comments on various social media platforms frequently, and then adjusts its marketing plan based on this feedback.

Industry data provider Openbook publishes best-seller lists on different categories, such as fiction, nonfiction and children’s books, every week as a reference.

In addition to the statistics, editors also have their own standards to decide what type of books to launch and publish next — where the reputation of the author and the quality of the content are usually key.

Guo said Jiang, the author, was a decisive factor when her company chose to reprint To Everyone’s Western Art History.

“His words are beautiful, lyrical and touching, the language is straightforward but glamorous, which meets the needs of the public,” she said. “And he already had a certain degree of popularity among readers.”

The writer’s authority adds significance, as a large number of current best-sellers are by historians or scholars who are widely known in their specific fields, although sometimes such works can be more difficult for the average reader to understand.

Considering market performance, Sun said the value and quality of content is another determining factor.

“The books we choose should have a solid market share,” she said. “They either focus on hot topics and have a long life cycle, meaning that they should have intriguing content; or have a stable readership that continues to buy such works.”

Copyright peaks

However, despite the rising numbers of Chinese readers who are seeking foreign history books, there are not that many such works being written by local authors.

Among the best-selling foreign history books last year, only two out of 11 were written by Chinese, while the remaining nine were imported, according to OpenBook.

Sun said that in recent years the introduction of copyright on foreign history works has peaked compared with previous years, especially those that span many hundreds of years, books on powerful empires, or biographies of historical figures, which fewer readers sought previously.

“Nowadays, such themes have become a popular area of social science publishing, and competition for copyright is fiercer than ever.”

Compared with domestic scholars, historians from Europe and the United States pay more attention to “nonprofessional readers” when writing, Sun said, adding, “There are many works that are not as difficult to read as they appear to be.”

An author’s authority is a standard by which editors pick candidates for publishing, but also a factor that readers consider when buying books.

Sun said that being geographically close to the area being written about can be a factor that makes readers subconsciously feel that foreign scholars are more authoritative in writing books on world or foreign history, and as a result, publishers will be more inclined to introduce foreign copyright on such works.

“It’s also a fact that foreign scholars have more research material and references,” she said. “Similarly, the best-selling books on Chinese history are mostly written by Chinese.”

However, Wang from Dookbook, believes that the introduction of copyright on foreign history works has just begun and will probably stabilize at the current level, while original Chinese works on history continue to dominate the market.

She said there might be a big rise in the number of foreign history books in the future. But demand for such works would not be as great as for those on Chinese history, as due to readers’ cultural backgrounds, more Chinese are interested in the country’s past than that of the outside world.

On the other hand, Sun said the introduction of copyright is an incentive for local authors, inspiring them to write more books on foreign history.

“Rather than the introduction of copyright from abroad, we hope that more domestic authors can write equally brilliant and rigorous works,” she said. “Especially, as in the past few years China has been encouraging the publication of this type of work.”

The books we choose should have a solid market share. They either focus on hot topics and have a long life cycle, meaning that they should have intriguing content; or have a stable readership that continues to buy such works.” Sun Qian’ao marketing editor from CITIC Press Group