The Story of China: A portrait of a civilisation and its people Paperback – August 5, 2021

This book is an excellent primer on the political and cultural history of 5000 years of China, and Michael Wood is a coherent and engaging author. I am a somewhat advanced scholar on CHina, art history, political and cultural history, but this book takes a vast subject and knits "The Story of China" together in a sequential fashion from pre neolithic days until fairly recently. I would urge those less familiar with China's political and cultural history to watch the excellent series (first aired on PBS) "The Story of China, and narrated by the author Michael Wood. That said, sadly it is already dated. I believe the series was finished before COVID and the closing of China to the outside world. Even before COVID, Xi Jingping was pulling back from the "global engagement" started by deng Xiaoping, which allowed China to become much more prosperous, modern, competitive, and also open to cultural and academic exchanges. Xi, and the pandemic have put a stop to our exchanges, especially in the art and academic worlds. But the series and the book leave the viewer nd reader with a much deeper understanding of the contributions to global progress, and Michael Wood does point out that China goes through periods of openness to the outside world and being a closed society, so hopefully the pendulum will swing back. He is a master story teller. Both on film and in print. There is not a boring paragraph in the book

I’ll make this book short to you: from 3000 years there is an unrest, then civil war, then a dynasty rises. Everything is beautiful, everybody is rich , brilliant art and literature is everywhere . After 100-300 years there is famine , flood and unrest, then civil war, then a dynasty rises… and so forth. A bit boring picture. One big question for me - the country has a centralized management from the First Emperor, yet foreign dynasties ruled for most of the time. Why? No answer here.