JONATHAN D. SPENCE

Dove pote mai fuggire la donna di nome Wang, rea di adulterio, prima di venire assassinata dal marito? Sicuramente lungo strade infestate da briganti, battute da nercanti di te, monaci Taoisti, cantastorie itineranti. E soprattutto lontano dalla legislazione labirintica e spietata che, nella Cina del Seicento, stringeva la donna in una morsa. Ripercorrendo vicende rimaste impigliate in opache complilazioni di storia locale o convenzionali trattati destinati alla formazione dei burocrati, e servendosi del contrappunto di uno dei maggiori scrittori del tempo, P''u Sung-ling, Spence resuscita una societa devastata da cataclismi e carestie, in cui un sistema feudale fondato su un complesso apparato vessatorio deve far fronte a razzie e ribellioni.

From humble beginnings in rural Hunan, Mao Zedong became the Great Helmsman of Communist China. By the time he died in 1976, he had profoundly changed the course of history. His increasingly erratic whims and graspings at a wild utopia destabilized his immense achievements, and he was ultimately responsible for the deaths of perhaps 60 million people. Jonathan Spence brings great erudition to the story of this flawed colossus. He is particularly enlightening on Mao''s early years--it is nearly two-thirds through the book before Mao stands on the walls of the Forbidden City in October 1949 and declares the establishment of the People''s Republic of China. The young revolutionary''s infamous willfulness is soon apparent, yet Spence rounds out his character by, for example, quoting a poem to his beloved first wife and mentioning the profit he made from an early capitalist venture, a bookstore. Mao Zedong is excellent biography--and more. China was convulsed for nearly a century by almost constant war and revolution, and Spence uses the life of the man at the heart of so many historic events to elucidate the whole momentous epoch. In his many writings, Spence has proved a master at making complex themes easy to understand, and this compact book provides yet another example of his skills. --John Stevenson --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Spence draws upon his extensive knowledge of Chinese politics and culture to create an illuminating picture of Mao. . . . Superb. (Chicago Tribune)From humble origins in the provinces, Mao Zedong rose to absolute power, unifying with an iron fist a vast country torn apart by years of weak leadership, colonialism, and war. This sharply drawn and insightful account brings to life this modern-day emperor and the tumultuous era that he did so much to shape. Jonathan Spence captures Mao in all his paradoxical grandeur and sheds light on the radical transformation he unleashed that still reverberates in China today.

A remarkable re-creation of the life of Kang-hsi, emperor of the Manchu dynasty from 1661-1772, assembled from documents that survived his reign. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.

A milestone in Western studies of China. (John K. Fairbank) In this masterful, highly original approach to modern Chinese history, Jonathan D. Spence shows us the Chinese revolution through the eyes of its most articulate participantsthe writers, historians, philosophers, and insurrectionists who shaped and were shaped by the turbulent events of the twentieth century. By skillfully combining literary materials with more conventional sources of political and social history, Spence provides an unparalleled look at China and her people and offers valuable insight into the continuing conflict between the implacable power of the state and the strivings of Chinas artists, writers, and thinkers.

Splendid . . . One could not imagine a better subject than Zhan Dai for Spence. (The New Republic)Celebrated China scholar Jonathan Spence vividly brings to life seventeenth-century China through this biography of Zhang Dai, recognized as one of the finest historians and essayists of the Ming dynasty. Born in 1597, Zhang Dai was forty-seven when the Ming dynasty, after more than two hundred years of rule, was overthrown by the Manchu invasion of 1644. Having lost his fortune and way of life, Zhang Dai fled to the countryside and spent his final forty years recounting the time of creativity and renaissance during Ming rule before the violent upheaval of its collapse. This absorbing tale of Zhang Dais life illuminates the transformation of a culture and reveals how Chinas history affects its place in the world today.

This lively and elegant book by the acclaimed historian Jonathan D. Spence reconstructs an extraordinary episode in the early intercourse between Europe and China. It is the story of John Hu, a lowly but devout Chinese Catholic, who in 1722 accompanied a Jesuit missionary on a journey to France--a journey that ended with Hus confinement in a lunatic asylum. At once a triumph of historical detective work and a gripping narrative, The Question of Hu deftly probes the collision of tw ocultures, with their different definitions of faith, madness, and moral obligation.

En la segunda mitad del siglo xvi, Oriente y Occidente entran en contacto de modo definitivo. Entre los personajes que protagonizan este encuentro destaca, sin lugar a dudas, el jesuita italiano Mateo Ricci, que abandono su pais en 1577 para llevar el cristianismo y el pensamiento occidental al Extremo Oriente. En El palacio de la memoriaJonathan Spence, uno de los mas importantes sinologos contemporaneos, nos ofrece el gran relato de esa apasionante vida. A la llegada de Ricci, China representaba una gran esperanza y un inmenso desafio. Para demostrar la superioridad del pensamiento occidental y asi conseguir conversos, Ricci se valio de algo que no podia fallar en una sociedad que valoraba extraordinariamente la capacidad memoristica: los palacios de la memoria, construcciones mnemotecnicas que en Europa causaban furor en ese momento. Aprovechando la obra del propio jesuita, Spence abandona el estilo de las biografias convencionales para contarnos la vida de Ricci a partir de cuatro imagenes mnemotecnicas creadas por el misionero, cuatro imagenes derivadas de episodios de la Biblia, incluidas por Ricci en un libro sobre el arte de la memoria que escribio en chino y distribuyo entre las elites intelectuales. El resultado es una valiosisima obra de historia global, que yuxtapone el ambiente de la Contrarreforma europea al de la China de la dinastia Ming.

Convertida no sólo en un gigante demográfico, sino en un agente económico de primera magnitud, China desempeña desde hace años un papel decisivo en el orden mundial. Este libro ofrece una completísima sintesis de todo cuanto al lector occidental le interesa conocer sobre la historia, la cultura, la economia y la politica chinas desde finales del siglo XVI hasta finales del XX, desde el esplendor de la dinastia Ming hasta los años que siguieron a la sangrienta represion de la revuelta de la plaza de Tiananmen en 1989. Jonathan D. Spencer, uno de los sinologos mas reconocidos, narra magistralmente las continuas convulsiones a que se ha visto sometida la poblacion china y los esfuerzos por consolidar las fronteras del mayor reino unificado de la historia. Tampoco falta el soberbio y documentado relato de las tragicas epopeyas acontecidas en la China del siglo XX, con las luchas entre comunistas y nacionalistas, la invasion japonesa o la devastadora Revolucion Cultural, ni el de las transformaciones y retos de una economia obligada a pasar en poco tiempo del feudalismo a la propiedad colectiva y a alimentar a mas de mil millones de seres humanos, sin olvidar los logros de una literatura y un arte asombrosos o la descripcion de unas costumbres y ment