Richard Baum (2) (1940–2012)

There's a lot of context here for people who want to understand the second largest economy in the world, with mini-lectures that need to be read by everybody across the entire political spectrum to show the multitude of ways the best intentions can go awry. On the further plus side, Baum doesn't pull any punches in any particular ideological directions; as an outside observer who spent quite a bit of time in China he has been almost ideally positioned to evaluate the success and failure of each switch in policy as they occurred.

Which leads to the conclusion that while China is in a dominant global position, based on history that position is more precarious perhaps, than the CCP realizes.… (més)

This lecture series covered something I'd never encountered except at the most high level or tangentially in history classes or other reading -- just what happened to China to go from essentially the most developed nation in the world, to sick man of Asia, to nearly a century of turmoil to modern China. The author/lecturer is a UCLA scholar who has focused on China, and was involved in many of the US contacts with China throughout the last 50 years, so he's particularly well suited to present this material.

Modern Chinese history is much more complex than you'd assume by just looking at it today (or comparable Russian history from 1917 to 1989), and seemed very path dependent. CCP had more internal challenges than it would appear from outside, and a lot of the big events (Long March, Cultural Revolution, Democracy protests and Tiananmen Square crackdown, Taiwan/Hong Kong situation, Uighurs) are less monolithic than I'd thought.

It's a pretty long lecture series, and still doesn't cover China pre-1800s. I'll probably try the "China from Yao to Mao" series next, and then try to find more specialized books about specific topics, but for modern China, this seems to be a relatively balanced and comprehensive overview.… (més)