River Town; Two Years on the Yangtze

History

Peter, Hessler

Middle East

Harpercollins

From the acclaimed author of River Town comes a rare portrait, both intimate and epic, of twenty-first-century China as it opens its doors to the outside world.A century ago, outsiders saw Chinaas a place where nothing ever changes. Today the coun-try has become one of the most dynamic regions on earth. That sense of time—the contrast between past and present, and the rhythms that emerge in a vast, ever-evolving country—is brilliantly illuminated by Peter Hessler in Oracle Bones, a book that explores the human side of China's transformation. Hessler tells the story of modern-day China and its growing links to the Western world as seen through the lives of a handful of ordinary people. In addition to the author, an American writer living in Beijing, the narrative follows Polat, a member of a forgotten ethnic minority, who moves to the United States in searchof freedom; William Jefferson Foster, who grew up in an illiterate family and becomes a teacher; Emily,a migrant factory worker in a city without a past; and Chen Mengjia, a scholar of oracle-bone inscriptions, the earliest known writing in East Asia, and a man whosetragic story has been lost since the Cultural Revolution. All are migrants, emigrants, or wanderers who find themselves far from home, their lives dramatically changed by historical forces they are struggling to understand.Peter Hessler excavates the past and puts a remarkable human face on the history he uncovers. In a narrative that gracefully moves between the ancient and the present, the East and the West, Hessler captures the soul of a country that is undergoing a momentous change before our eyes.

Oracle Bones

World

Hessler, Peter., HarperCollins Pub., nd (2006), c

When Peter Hessler went to China in the late 1990s, he expected to spend a couple of peaceful years teaching English in the town of Fuling on the Yangtze River. But what he experienced - the natural beauty, cultural tension, and complex process of understanding that takes place when one is thrust into a radically different society - surpassed anything he could have imagined. Hessler observes firsthand how major events such as the death of Deng Xiaoping, the return of Hong Kong to the mainland, and the controversial consturction of the Three Gorges Dam have affected even the people of a remote town like Fuling. Poignant, thoughtful and utterly compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a place caught mid-river in time, much like China itself - a country seeking to understand both what it was and what it will one day become.

River Town : Two Years on the Yangtze

Asia

Hodder Pb

In recent years, China has proffered tantalizingly fertile landscapes to photographers exploring the socioeconomic impact of its arrival as a superpower. Such projects typically hew closely to well-established narratives, revealing an obvious truth: that China is undergoing a radical wave of transformational change. In his first monograph, Chinese Sentiment, Shen Wei has performed a radical act in its own right by sidestepping all such cliche. Instead, he presents a vision of his homeland that peers deep beneath the surface, plumbing the psychological shades of gray, and finding a nation ambivalent to its perpetual state of suspension between past and future. Running counter to virtually every Western interpretation, Shen Wei reveals the human scale of China: a lone figure observed through the trees; the stolen glance of a young girl; a moment of repose in the bedroom. With nuanced observation and a serene visual style marked with wit and compassion, the seventy-five images in Chinese Sentiment render a complex portrait of modern China. Employing the language of photography in a manner both dreamlike and cinematic in scope, Chinese Sentiment gracefully limns the interior life of a nation in the throes of epic change. The introduction is by Peter Hessler, staff writer and former Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker. Hessler is the author of three books on China, including Country Driving, A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory (Harper, 2010). Chinese Sentiment was guest-edited by Lesley A. Martin, publisher of the Aperture Foundation book program.

Chinese Sentiment

Charles Lane Press

'Tenacious, revelatory, and humane.' - Paul Theroux\n'The Buried is the kind of book that you don't want to end and won't forget. With the eye of a great storyteller Peter Hessler weaves together history, reporting, memoir, and above all the lives of ordinary people in a beautiful and haunting portrait of Egypt and its Revolution.' - Ben Rhodes\nIn 2011, while revolution swept across Egypt, Peter Hessler was reporting on the everyday lives and ancient secrets of a country in turmoil.\nThe result is this unforgettable work of literary and documentary brilliance. In The Buried, Hessler traces the human stories alongside the broader sweep of historic events: Tahrir Square, the massacres and the coup form the background, but so too do ancient cults, buried cities in the desert and dead pharaohs with huge ambitions. Most important are the people forging their lives in this world. We follow rubbish collector Sayyid; Arabic teacher Rifaat; and Manu, a translator. There are also the Chinese immigrants who have built a lingerie empire, politicians and ingenious archaeologists. Together, they raise the question: is revolution just repetition, or can things ever really change?

The Buried

Profile Books

Other Rivers

ATLANTIC BOOKS *

Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip

Canongate Books Ltd.

In the summer of 2001, Peter Hessler acquired his Chinese driver's license. For the next seven years he travelled the country, tracking how the automobile and the improved transport system were transforming China. Here, Hessler writes of everyday people who have reshaped the country.

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

CANONGATE BOOKS *

The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution

The Text Publishing Company

Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory (Chinese Edition)

Travel

shanghai yiwen press

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