Great State

The author of Vermeer’s Hat shares “a dizzying and exhilarating journey” through 800 years of Chinese history and national identity (New Statesman). China is one of the oldest states in the world. It achieved its approximate borders with the Ascendancy of the Yuan dynasty in the thirteenth century and has maintained them ever since—through the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Republic, the Occupation, and Communism. Yet China has never been alone in the world. It has had to contend with invaders as