This Is China This Is China—probably the shortest survey of
Chinese history, geography, and culture that exists—was made
possible by a much longer work, the 2,754-page Berkshire
Encyclopedia of China: Modern and Historic Views of the World’s
Newest and Oldest Global Power. In Chinese terms, even that is a
short work: the Yongle dadian, or Great Compendium of the Yongle
Reign (1408) had 22,877 chapters in 11,095 volumes. It was our
longer encyclopedic work that made this brief history possible.
Chinese people, of course, understand the importance of brevity.
And their society, as readers new to Chinese history will learn,
has been one of many “firsts.” The Laozi 老子, one of China’s most
renowned philosophical works, famously declared that a journey
of a thousand miles begins with a single step. This Is China,
for those of us who are learning about the country, provides an
easy way to take that first, single step through thousands of
years of history and across the vast territory that is China
today. This histor