Imperial China: The Definitive Visual History

Subject matter ok

Please make more! I love these books and wish there were more of them. If you made a Japan one or a precolumbian american one I'd buy them instantly! So many other civilizations to cover!

After a 5 year delay due to illness and Covid restrictions we are finally heading off to a major tour of China this spring. This book and the great travel guides from DK gives us lots of context. As with all these large scale DK books it’s beautifully printed and well worth the money.

I bought this book for my daughters birthday present, it has some damage to the corners from transit. It wasn't packaged well enough for a nice quality hardback book. It's too late to send it back. The book itself looks very good, my daughter will love it.

Beautifully made book, and full of interesting facts, but the book has a clear communist party agenda of trying to claim continuity of the nation. This I believe is the simple reason why there are no maps in the book is because it would show that throughout most of this period, China is not one nation and covers only a small fraction of the land they now cover. The book is written by a Chinese institution – encyclopaedia of China publishing house. The ECPH is a member of the China Publishing Group (CPG). The CPG is the largest publishing group in the country and is a solely state-owned limited liability company. It was established with the direct approval of the State Council in 1978 (the central cabinet of the Chinese government). This means this book is essentially written by the CCP. The book is not academic as it pushes a slightly tilted history in order to push an agenda, unlike the other books I have read in the series – Rome and Greece. For instance: Historically the ethnic “Han” people are only a small fraction of the nation – even today the 1 billion quoted is not correct as many of these “Han” are descendants of minorities that have been erased and are no longer recognised, it is like merging all of Europe into one nation and calling everyone European, or saying all of Africa is one race called Africans. China today is a country stitched together from hundreds of smaller tribes, peoples and nations and China starts as an empire – much like the Roman or Persian empires - which devoured them and assimilated these peoples. The book refuses to reflect that as it is not a critical study. Had it been honest it would have reflected the fact that China is not a single nation in the same way Germany or France is, but rather it still is an empire which slowly grew over time (look up some maps online), one which still maintains control of territories which were historically not China/were tributaries/have been conquered (Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, East Turkistan, Tibet, their claim of Formosa, 9 dash line etc.). I am quite disappointed with DK, if it were not for the good print, images, layout and the actual facts that are in this book I would give it 1 star. Buyer beware you are paying for propaganda.

satisfied

Exquisitely produced. Lavishly illustrated. A pleasure to read. I had two problems with this book. First (and most serious) there is not a single map of China in the entire book. This made it very difficult for the general reader to visualise important elements in the history of imperial China. Second, if another edition of this beautiful book is ever considered, it would be a help if the Chinese names were introduced with a phonetic version that would help non-Chinese readers to get a handle on the names.

Was a present they loved it

As shown

What a lovely book, excellent printig quality on a very high class paper. The book is full of most interesting illustration, and naturally highly intersting texts of the Chinese art history!

Eindelijk een boek over het Chinese kulturele avontuur. Goed geillustreerd!

The book is superbly made with very high quality text and plenty of illustrations. But there is one GLARING omission: there is not even a single map showing locations of areas mentioned in the text! For example, even in the section about "Land and people" there is only description with some landscape photos but no map, etc, etc.

It's a marvellous book -- and mostly in the commendable tradition of DK. But I am SHOCKED not to find a SINGLE map! Impossible to understand as maps would be absolutely necessary in a comprehensive survey of 5+ millennia of history. Especially as DK themselves describe the book as - The Definitive Visual History of Imperial China. If maps are not an integral and indispensable part of any VISUAL history -- what are they? Shame on you - DK!