Imperial Twilight : The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age

Resumen del libro

As China reclaims its position as a world power, Imperial Twilight looks back to tell the story of the country's last age of ascendance and how it came to an end in the nineteenth-century Opium War.

As one of the most potent turning points in the country's modern history, the Opium War has since come to stand for everything that today's China seeks to put behind it. In this dramatic, epic story, award-winning historian Stephen Platt sheds new light on the early attempts by Western traders and missionaries to ';open' China even as China's imperial rulers were struggling to manage their country's decline and Confucian scholars grappled with how to use foreign trade to China's advantage. The book paints an enduring portrait of an immensely profitableand mostly peacefulmeeting of civilizations that was destined to be shattered by one of the most shockingly unjust wars in the annals of imperial history.

Brimming with a fascinating cast of British, Chinese, and American characters, this riveting narrative of relations between China and the West has important implications for today's uncertain and ever-changing political climate.

Biografía del autor

x{0026}lt;p Stephen R. Platt es profesor de Historia de China en la Universidad de Massachusetts Amherst. Su último libro, x{0026}lt;i Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil Warx{0026}lt;/i fue Libro Destacado del x{0026}lt;i Washington Post,x{0026}lt;/i Selección del Editor del x{0026}lt;i New York Times Book Reviewx{0026}lt;/i y ganador del Premio de Historia Cundill. Platt vive con su mujer y sus hijos en Northampton, Massachusetts.x{0026}lt;/p