China: The Novel

One sentence synopsis... Beginning at the dawn of the Opium War, this historical epic follows the rising and falling fortunes of a cast of Chinese, British, and American families.

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Read it if you like... all the other Rutherfurd sagas. However in ‘China' the prolific author takes a slightly closer look at the period of Mao's Cultural Revolution than he usually dedicates to a particular time period.

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Dream casting... Fala Chen as the beautiful and resourceful Mei-Ling. Ben Barnes as down on his luck opium trader John Trader.

I really enjoyed this book! You can tell the author has done research on the topics covered. But there are some things during this period that may be more fiction than fact. I think that Edward Rutherfurd does a good job explaining this as the main individual writing at the time was Edmund Backhouse who has been seen as an unreliable historian. I think Mr. Rutherfurd did a good job of showing the respect that Cixi deserves and not that of the Dragon Empress as people have claimed her to be.
That depiction of her is mostly due to the misogynistic writings of the historian throughout the twentieth century. I think this book explore so much more.
Years ago, I listened to a podcast about “the other side of history” and that is the history of the day-to-day average person. I think this book attempts that by inserting fictional characters in with historical ones.
This was my first book by Edward Rutherfurd, and it will not be my last!

I really enjoyed this book! You can tell the author has done research on the topics covered. But there are some things during this period that may be more fiction than fact. I think that Edward Rutherfurd does a good job explaining this as the main individual writing at the time was Edmund Backhouse who has been seen as an unreliable historian. I think Mr. Rutherfurd did a good job of showing the respect that Cixi deserves and not that of the Dragon Empress as people have claimed her to be.
That depiction of her is mostly due to the misogynistic writings of the historian throughout the twentieth century. I think this book explore so much more.
Years ago, I listened to a podcast about “the other side of history” and that is the history of the day-to-day average person. I think this book attempts that by inserting fictional characters in with historical ones.
This was my first book by Edward Rutherfurd, and it will not be my last!