China: Land of Dragons and Emperors by Adeline Yen Mah

China: Land of Dragons and Emperors Reviews

• 
  Heidi

  I processed this book into the library collection last week but never really considered reading it until this year when the students began working on an Ancient China assignment and our collection was coming up rather short. Mah's book was catalogued as modern Chinese history, and I wanted to work out whether it was miscatalogued, and whether it could be helpful to kids in their ancient China assignment.
  
  It is a *very* basic introduction to Chinese history; very much an overview. It (allied with some Avatar-related posts I've been reading around LJ, and IBARW stuff) has made me realise how much I don't understand about China, and how I do tend to view the entire Imperial era as some sort of pretty fantasy "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" world. Which is a major failing on my part, and something I would like to try to rectify in the future.
  
  It was also fascinating to be in the middle of this book when watching the first of Tony ("Baldrick") Robinson's programs on the history of the British Legal system. There he was, talking about pre-1066 law in Britain, and I was comparing the dates he was talking about to where I was in the book and being flabbergasted by the difference.
  
  Mah's description of the Qing dynasty provides an explanation of how China went from being so amazingly advanced to being considered "backwards". It also says nothing good about the Victorian-era Brits who seem to have been as narrow-minded as most white colonists and explorers (geeze, we can be dumb-as. ~sigh~)
  
  This book really is a very good simple introduction to China.
• 
  Candy Mickelson

  This books is a very interesting young adult non-fiction book about China. It is very informative, but Yen Mah tends to take the standard history book approach and focus on imperial history and writes little about the everyday people. She states at the beginning of the book that China recorded history more precisely than other countries such as those in Europe, but she only seems to use that of the Emperors, which doesn't seem very impressive for the records, because most royalty information is kept very well. Still, she offers readers a rich look into Chinese culture by explaining proverbs, colors, and famous landmarks. She writes it in a way that is a good level for adolescents, yet her writing is not very engaging. Although she condenses the information well and explains sufficiently she does seem to do it in a very informative way and not in a "let me tell you about this awesome Chinese story." This is too bad because, China has such an interesting history and it could be such a great novel to inform adolescent about China. Yen Mah does show her deep pride in China through this book and expresses her desire to expose the world to the Eastern history in order to unite east and west. She wants to do this because she believes that China will be a great power in the 21st century and wants to help people understand it a little better.
• 
  Erin Reilly-Sanders

  I really enjoyed this brief little history of China. I felt that the topics and people it focused within the different time periods were relevant, interesting, and consequently well-chosen. I would have really liked more constructed visuals that imparted information like more maps over time, city maps, buildings,and something that showed how long each dynasty lasted since the numbers are hard to relate to each other. While I really appreciate the aesthetic qualities of the book (nice size, good paper quality, lots of illustrations, different sections etc), I did find that many of the images were not well captioned (some were) and often seemed like they were a handy image rather than the best image. As a Chinese immigrant, the author seems to be a reliable source who can also translate ideas to western audiences. Overall it was rather decent and I would consider teaching as part of a non-fiction unit.
• 
  Matt

  This book was quite useful as a quick introduction to Chinese history. Of course, given its length and nature as young-adult nonfiction, it lacked some detail and complexity. I particularly liked the few glimpses into Chinese culture (the meaning of colors, the inventions, etc.), but mostly the book was about the various emperors and the intrigues surrounding them. If that got repetitive, I suppose that says more about the human lust for power than Mah's writing. It was interesting (and sad) to read about how advanced Chinese culture became at certain points in time, coming up with useful inventions and far exceeding the West, only to lose that emphasis on science and advancement. It's a reminder of the rise and fall of civilizations, when they get off-track.
• 
  jude

  Informative and quite educational, this really helped a lot with some of my confusion about China's history and made me more curious to get a history book that would tackle this subject more thoroughly. Though I have to add, the edition I read was riddled with errors—thankfully, not typographical, but just the spacing wherethewordswouldgolikethis for some reason: a small error, to be sure, but annoying, nonetheless.
• 
  Catherine

  From the author of Chinese Cinderella, this history of China is a simple read aimed at school students, but also very helpful for people like me who want a quick overview of the country’s long history.
  I now better understand the foundations for situations like the retaking of Hong Kong and the nervousness of Taiwan. Sadly the book was written in 2008 before Xi Jinping came to power. China’s history was full of brutish overthrows, turmoil and expansion. That explains a lot.
  
• 
  Ardyth

  A fairly readable survey of China's political history and cultural contributions to humanity across millennia.
  
  Plan to take your time with this -- move too fast, and about 1800 years of it will be a blur of unfamiliar names. A modern political map of China, so you can find these places & relate them to today. You'll want to have a Century Chart or Book of Centuries or some similar high-level integrated world history timeline handy to add key events (political and technological), too.
  
  The book is geared towards Western children, and I appreciate Mah's delicate handling of 20th century history in particular... we in the West have not been exposed much to Chiang Kai Shek's shortcomings, and her inclusion of the KMT's pogrom of former-allies in the Communist party is an important factor to understand China's recent history. She also provided a decent summary of Taiwan's complex history -- something more of us Westerners need to understand better. And she doesn't shy away from Mao's gradual behavioral shift, either.
  
  All in all, a very good survey of the myriad dragons and emperors who, altogether, brought today's China into being. Just take your time.
• 
  Jinbin

  In this book, Adeline Yen Mah leads the readers thousands of years back to the history of China. She starts the book telling the story of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang. In chronological order, she goes on with the dynasties following the first and their significant roles in China's history. From this book, I learned that the Chinese first invented matches, paper, gunpowder and many other tools that people used. However, they were not smart enough to greatly utilize those tools. For example, the Chinese invented gunpowder which was later brought to Europe. While they used it for fireworks, the Europeans used it to make weapons. I think it was a little biased to say that Mao Ze Dong is a "bad" person. Even though the Cultural Revolution was a disaster to the Chinese, he did contributed positive things to China.
  
  
• 
  Heidi

  Mah, author of the memoirs, Falling Leaves and Chinese Cinderella, has attempted to span 2200 years of CHinese history in this one small book. Without a doubt, she succeeds, as she draws the readers into the world of silk, warlords, and dynasties. The text is well organized, mainly by dynasty, and anecdotal information is describe on pages printed with gray scrolls. Black and white photos, illustrations, and maps supplement the text. One item which detracted from the book was the lack of pagination references for maps. An example is the discussion of the Silk Road on pages 48-49; it would've been helpful to have a mention of "see map on pages 14-15." A caution for upper elementary and schools with moral issues to consider: a mention is made of an emperor's son forcing concubines to have abortions and also of attempting to rape one of his father's concubines.
• 
  Kristi

  Fantastically depicted history of China, informative and enjoyable without really feeling like you were in a classroom. I’m not really sure how to go about reviewing this novel, since I don’t usually review nonfiction. I can’t judge characters or plot..... since there aren’t any.
  
  I’m not usually a nonfiction fan, but I actually enjoyed reading this one. It didn’t take me too long and it was actually interesting. The novel breaks down the book by Dynastys and explains what happened during that period of time. It also includes interesting tidbits, such as the Chinese Moon Festival or the invention of block printing.
  
  Overall an interesting look into the history of China. I was very surprised by how much I didn’t know.
• 
  Melissa

  This book blew me away. It think it was mostly the scope and subject that was so fascinating (though clean, clear writing helps). I honestly can't believe how little I've known about Chinese history. It was a "Hey, listen to this," sort of book for me. Some of those emperors were downright brutal. I even found myself ranting out of the blue at a family party about the heartless British opium trade. I only regret that much of this information was so new to me that I've already forgotten a great deal of it. Hopefully, it will provide me with reference points I can use as I learn more about China.
  
  The text formatting of this book needed some major help. The way the book was set, the word spacing shrunk in some places as to be virtual useless. Soyouendedupwithlinesthatreadlikethis. Ack.
• 
  Shirley Lee

  fabulous summary of the what's most important in China's history. would definitely recommend this book for someone who has little knowledge of the dynasties. most importantly, it's not boring or dense but indicates the importance of the 6 major dynasties. a lot of other books, list all the dynasties and it's way too confusing and complicated to comprehend especially with over 5000 years of history involved. what inventions did the chinese made? paper, wheelbarrow, crossbow, matches, silk, seismograph, gunpowder, cast iron, stirrups for horses, porcelain, printing and many more wonderful inventions. read this book to find out :)
• 
  Emily

  Finished this book as a light reading in attempt to reconnect myself with my ancestry. The book was, honestly, a little dry but with interesting little nuggets smuggled in between. Very concise and easy to understand, but is not enough to feed the curious mind of a history student. It prompted me to re-watch Princess Pearl (Huanzhu Princess) series and taken my interest on old imperial chinese culture a little deeper. Refreshing.
• 
  Kathy

  Great little book on Chinese history. I was amazed how much was packed into this little book. A great introduction to the most populous country in the world. Interesting stories, interesting pictures, well-done. The only fault I find with the book is what some others have said: The textual editing is atrocious! The text is right- and left-justified, but sometimesyouendupwithalinewithnospacesatall! I highly recommend the book, however, for the content.
• 
  Heather

  This book was fascinating and made me want to learn more. My only complaint has nothing to do with the author or the book, but with the copy editor. The tracking in multiple lines throughout the book was so overly condensed that words blended together and were hard to read. Very annoying, especially because the book itself is top-notch.
• 
  Rick

  Frequently too simple and far too rushed... but what do you expect from trying to cram thousands of years of some of the richest history of any culture on earth into a couple hundred pages of a tiny book?
• 
  Crystal

  I remember buying this book from book club back in primary school and I absolutely loved it, as there was few books written about Chinese history was written in English for a primary school kid to understand (or at least what I could find at the local library). So this was book was great!
• 
  Fabiola

  Absolutely loved how she managed to fit so many different events and characters into such a short book! I finally got the dynasties clear, as well as China's history in general. A great read for intro to China's history.
• 
  Cori Cooper

  This book was SO interesting. The author summarizes Chineses history from the beginning of emperors to current. I loved it. I was fascinated.
• 
  Kaethe

  I'm reading some of this aloud, and the KitKatPandaBatWolf is also reading this to herself. She would like everyone to know that she thinks its great.
• 
  Mark

  I enjoyed the brief history and the proverbs
• 
  Kristina

  Took me forever to read, but ultimately an interesting young-adultish history of China.
• 
  Susan

  Fascinating. Concisely written. Historical facts about China, her dynasties, culture, technology, and trade. Plan on reading this a second time so I can remember more of it.
• 
  Sajid Hakeem

  A Beautiful book. Recommended for all history lovers
• 
  Yumi

  It was fun to read China's history. I wish this helps for my projects...
• 
  Jenny Karraker

  Visited this country over the summer and wanted to read something simple that would give me an overview of the country, history, etc. This was a delightful little book that did just that. Each chapter covers a different dynasty describing the major events of that periods, key people, unique characteristics of that era or area of the country, art forms, inventions, etc. It included lots of photos of the various art forms, maps, historic areas, etc. It was a very easy read and gave a great overview. Now I feel like I have some pegs to hang things on. Now I feel like I can read other things about an area, a person, a historical time, etc and will be able to put that into context.