A generous take on China's modern history

There's no doubt that Mitter understands where he's locating himself on the general map of contemporary historians of China -- anti-theoretical, non-confrontational, and generally empirical in his assumptions.

He's no flailing Marxist, but not a flagrant anti-Communist either. Instead, he typically takes the long view. China embarked on the process of modernization almost 100 years ago, and though the rise to power of the Communists represented a major rupture in the country's modern history, the process of modernization preceded their revolution, and will (though it doesn't fit in with Mitter's equanimity and poise to say as much) almost certainly succeed them.

Mitter is one of a new kind of historian -- ?the type who don't take up ideological positions on the political left or right, but instead adopt a humane general overview.

They tend to ask of revolutions: "How many people were killed?" and to conclude that the violence and upheaval were unnecessary, and that the changes that occurred would probably have happened anyway by a gradual and peaceful natural process.

Another thing Mitter lays great stress on is a 1988 TV series in China called Heshang (河殤, River Elegy). This was, he claims, the single most-watched documentary in the history of the medium. Its theme was that 70 years after May 4, 1919, China was still laboring under a culture that was holding back its effective modernization. The series is now banned, and copies are hard to find inside China. That it came the year before the 1989 events in Tiananmen Square is no coincidence.

This, then, is an accessible and comprehensive overview of one of China's more turbulent centuries. Academics are likely to find it too popular for their needs, while others will find it useful and readable, though perhaps lacking in the contentious bite that makes for a really stimulating read. The book's cautious conclusion is that it's still unclear what kind of a place China is becoming.