A review by sudhang
The Search For Modern China by Jonathan D. Spence

5.0

The ascent of contemporary China in some thirty years has fascinated and bewildered many, especially as the nation belies all western/modern ideas of the enlightenment, such as Individual Freedom, Representative Democracy. Onlookers from more liberal nations struggle to make sense of this rise that challenges the basic foundations of liberal democracies. From that perspective, Spence's book (which stops shortly after Tiananmen Square Massacre) offers some explanation behind the Sinic love for order and bureaucracy, and their justifiable umbrage at the western world.

Spence's greatest success here is how he plausibly showcases precedents for their cycles of revolutions, suppression of revolutions, further successful revolutions, reforms and further tightening of bureaucracy that forms the basis of his running theme: the Chinese may be rich and industrialized, but can only be modern if they extricate themselves from the vicious cycle of revolution and tyranny.