asia

Ebrey's "Cambridge Illustrated History of China" is a great textbook for the student or reader desiring only to get a basic overview of chinese history. The book is exceptionally smooth reading and enjoyable, yet it is not exactly suited for students with an existing knowledge of China. The book is greatly complimented by Roberts' "A Concise History of China" which discusses more material into greater fact-packed detail, but not as smooth or enjoyable to read alone.

If you're looking for a general overview or first book to read on Chinese history, this it. It's concise and very clearly organized, giving an even coverage over the whole course of Chinese history. The many photos are generally quite relevant to the text, though I found the maps made little sense to me. She uses pinyin for all names regardless of time or place -- which is mostly good. I found her writing very dry, but you'll notice some reviewers say she's a great writer. I think the book is strongest on high culture (as opposed to politics and battles and emperors and such)

Don't expect this brief book to overflow with details. If you want details, then you'll have to read Jacques Gernet's "A History of Chinese Civilization".

One of the interesting things about this book is that it uses standard Mandarin Pinyin (Chiang Kai-Shek is Jiang Jieshi, Sun Yat-Sen is Sun Zhongshan, etc). While this can be very helpful to those who know Mandarin Pinyin, it can be somewhat confusing to those who do not.

For the most part, the book is factual and unbiased, although Ebrey does allow her anti-Maoist bias to slant her discussion of post-1949 China. The read is extremely dry, however, and often comes across as a colorless collection of irrelevant facts.