The Penguin history of modern China : the fall and rise of a great power, 1850-2008
"In the second half of the 19th century, China appeared as the sick man of Asia, rocked by recurrent revolts and huge natural disasters, ruled by an anachronistic imperial system and humiliated by foreign invasions. Karl Marx saw it as bound to disintegrate, like 'any mummy carefully preserved in a hermetically sealed coffin'."--Jacket
Print Book, English, 2008
Allen Lane, London, 2008