CHINA: A HISTORY

Concise, comprehensive and impressively reproduced

Author John Keay Publisher Folio Society Price £140 Released Out now

In his bold attempt to chronicle the vast majority of the history of China, John Keay was both helped and hindered by the preponderance of records and primary sources that can be drawn from the tell the story. He was helped because it means the end result is a very nicely balanced book that gives due attention to China’s ancient and early modern history as well as to the more recent past. He was hindered because there is just so much to try to encapsulate in what was originally about 500 pages (now extended to 688 pages split across two volumes for this Folio edition).

So, we can’t expect a thorough examination of the Han, Tang or Song Dynasties as you might get in books dedicated to those periods, but what we get is impressive given the constraints of trying to condense so much history into one narrative. Keay finds his path by looking at events and philosophies through Chinese history that draw a consistent throughline for the nation, which is apt given that China often seems consumed by recording and reconsidering its past to contextualise its present. It’s thanks to this fact that we have so many records and such a clear picture of events in Chinese history.

The bulk of the book is focused on the aforementioned dynasties, plus the Ming and Qing, making up the ‘big five’ of Chinese history. The important achievements and failings of each dynasty, the ebb and flow of their destinies and the legacy each dynasty left for those that followed are concisely represented and always kept in mind. Keay does an excellent job of drawing the connected threads of history together and offering us a guided tour through Chinese history on every page. He brings a comforting authority and approachability to this topic that can very often feel impenetrable to a Western reader who is less familiar with the language and geography of the region.

In fact, both language and geography are nicely addressed early in the book to help set up some basic concepts for readers. As an introduction to Chinese history, this book really couldn’t be doing much more to prime you for further reading. As Keay admits himself, he is not an academic, but he comfortably achieves his primary goal of making a subject spanning 3,000 years accessible.

As always, we can only marvel at the quality of the production of this dual volume set from Folio. Working with Keay on this new edition, we have a new introduction from the author that offers some additional contemporary context and continuations of the topics discussed in the pages to follow, including COVID-19 and the response of the Chinese government to recent events. Together they have also brought 90 colour plates across the books that give us gorgeous images of historic artefacts and paintings and 27 integrated maps, not to mention a number of graphs and tables that visualise important timelines and events. It’s another stunning piece of work.

“Keay does an excellent job of drawing the connected threads of history together”