Return to the Middle Kingdom by Yuan-Tsung Chen

From TheBookbag

Return to the Middle Kingdom by Yuan-Tsung Chen

Genre: History

Reviewer: Sue Magee
Summary: The story of three generations of revolutionaries as told by the widow of the last fills gaps which other histories have left. Parts of it make harrowing reading.
Buy? Maybe	Borrow? Yes
Format: Paperback 464 pages
Publisher: Union Square June 2008
ISBN: 978-1402761843
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Yuan-Tsung Chen's family have lived through momentous times in China and been as close to what was happening as any one family could be. Chen Guixin, born in 1830 in the time of the Manchu government and just before the beginning of the Opium Wars was her husband's grandfather. He was a part of the Taiping Rebellion but it was his son, Chen Youren who was hailed as a hero when he marched into two former British concessions and reclaimed the land for China. He was the first foreign minister of modern China to have taken back land from the colonial powers. The author married Chen Youren's son, the journalist and artist Jack Chen, who was arrested by the Red Guards in the Cultural Revolution and who later continued his work in the USA.

The western powers are beginning to seem rather old hat these days and the emerging superpowers would seem to be China and India, so a look at how China has been shaped over the last 150 years is to be welcomed. It's an ambitious book – perhaps overly ambitious given the momentous changes which followed the ending of four thousand years of dynastic rule – but with its personal perspective it fills gaps which a more conventional history would leave unfilled. Comparisons with Jung Chang's Wild Swans are inevitable, but Return to the Middle Kingdom suffers from inclusion of more political detail and much of it being written from research rather than experience or word of mouth.

An obvious attempt has been made to make this easy reading for the west by use of westernised names wherever possible. Chen Guixin is called Joseph Chen and Chen Youren is Eugene Chen. Admittedly many other sources refer to Chen Youren as Eugene Chen but I do find westernising a name for our own convenience slightly offensive.

The book is honest and certainly not a hagiography. In places it's also harrowing and it's certainly not a relaxing read. The research behind the book has been meticulous – occasionally the telling of how the information came to light gets in the way of the story – and the book is a valuable resource for those wanting to know more about how China has been shaped.

I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag.

For a more historical look at China we can cautiously recommend The First Emperor of China by Frances Wood but for a more modern look at the country and particularly Sichuan it would be difficult to better Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-sour Memoir of Eating in China by Fuchsia Dunlop.

You can read more reviews of this book at Amazon and Waterstones

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