Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination

The extraordinary story of how, through its struggle to throw off the countless foreigners who sought to exploit or ruin it, China became the powerful country it is today. Even at the high noon of Europe's empire-building China managed to be one of the handful of countries not to succumb. Invaded, humiliated and looted, China nonetheless kept its sovereignty. Robert Bickers' major new book is the first to describe fully what has proved to be one of the modern era's most important stories- the long, often agonizing process by which the Chinese had by the end of the twentieth century regained control of their own country. Out of China uses a brilliant array of unusual, strange and vivid sources to recreate a now fantastically remote world- the corrupt, lurid modernity of pre-war Shanghai, the often tiny patches of 'extra-territorial' land controlled by European powers (one of which, unnoticed, had mostly toppled into a river), the entrep ts of Hong Kong and Macao, and the myriad means, through armed threats, technology and legal chicanery, by which China was kept subservient until, gradually, it emerged from Western control. That struggle continued until the end of the twentieth century, through the Cold War and its aftermath, and shaped both Chiang Kai-shek's rule in Taiwan and the China of Mao Zedong and his successors. Today Chinese nationalism stays firmly rooted in memories of its degraded past - the quest for self-sufficiency, the determination to assert China's standing in the world, to stake its outstanding territorial claims, and never to be vulnerable to renewed attack. History matters deeply to Beijing's current rulers - and Out of China explains why.

About the Author :
Robert Bickers is the author of the highly-acclaimed Empire Made Me and The Scramble for China. He has written extensively on Chinese history and is a Professor of History at the University of Bristol.

Review :
Bickers... adopts a wide lens in capturing the diversity of Sino-western interactions. Few nuances escape his eye... Out of China demolishes many favourite motifs of official history in China...Teeming with nuances while assailing the Communist party's nationalistic narrative, Bickers' book is a reminder of the importance of uncovering the past's messy, contradictory truths. Eery schoolchild in China has heard of the sign at a park in colonial-era Shanghai that said: "Chinese and dogs not admitted." It is often cited as the kind of foreign arrogance that shamed a great civilisation into throwing off the yoke of imperialism, a struggle well told in this new book by Robert Bickers, our pre-eminent historian of the British in China...It is a pleasure to read the fruits of his mature scholarship as he revisits familiar ground, puncturing myths and putting British and Chinese views into reciprocal perspective. Robert Bickers is a pre-eminent chronicler of China... a great story told with splashes of colour and sharp wit This detailed account valuably reconstructs the west's recent cultural malfeasance in China, and also challenges the simple, propaganda narrative that the CCP tells about its deliverance of China from Colonial aggressors