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Superpower Interrupted

The Chinese History of the World

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Superpower Interrupted

By: Michael Schuman
Narrated by: Shawn Compton
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About this listen

This global history as the Chinese would write it gives brilliant and unconventional insights for understanding China's role in the world, especially the drive to "Make China Great Again."

We in the West routinely ask: "What does China want?" The answer is quite simple: the superpower status it always had, but briefly lost.

In this colorful, informative story filled with fascinating characters, epic battles, influential thinkers, and decisive moments, we come to understand how the Chinese view their own history and how its narrative is distinctly different from that of Western civilization. More important, we come to see how this unique Chinese history of the world shapes China's economic policy, attitude toward the United States and the rest of the world, relations with its neighbors, positions on democracy and human rights, and notions of good government.

As the Chinese see it, for as far back as anyone can remember, China had the richest economy, the strongest military, and the most advanced philosophy, culture, and technology. The collision with the West knocked China's historical narrative off course for the first time, as its 5,000-year reign as an unrivaled superpower came to an ignominious end.

Ever since, the Chinese have licked their wounds and fixated on returning their country to its former greatness, restoring the Chinese version of its place in the world as they had always known it. For the Chinese, the question was never if they could reclaim their former dominant position in the world, but when.

©2020 Michael Schuman (P)2020 Hachette Audio
Asia China Military

Critic Reviews

"Schuman skillfully narrates more than three thousand years of history through a Chinese lens that places China at the center of the world and Chinese civilization above all others. Superpower Interrupted provides crucial insights into Xi Jinping's Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation that seeks to restore China to its rightful place as world leader. Superpower Interrupted is essential reading for all those who want a deeper understanding of the historical roots of China's national objectives." (Bonnie Glaser, Center for Strategic and International Studies)

"Of considerable interest to students of world trade, geopolitics, and history." (Kirkus Reviews)

"As noted historian Jonathan Spence argued some twenty-two years ago, the West has long been guilty of seeing China through the same lens that it sees itself. Michael Schuman provides a fascinating antidote to this bias, examining China's worldview through its own lens. Is history on China's side? Schuman offers some tantalizing hints to the answer of that critical question." (Stephen Roach, senior fellow Yale University, former chairman Morgan Stanley Asia)

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Very informative.

This book is a great introduction to Chinese history and how China has viewed itself and its place in the world.

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Very good short political history of The PRC

Excellent, learned a lot in a short time, very interesting and exciting to listen too

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An excellent perspective on China

This is a terrific book. Most of it is a history of China and proto-China. By looking at this history a basic pattern arises of successive rises and collapses of the Chinese state. The modern history of China is the fit into this basic pattern. There is only a little bit of analysis at the end, but mostly it’s just a great overview of the history of the country.

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