Volume 42, Number 11 · June 22, 1995
Jumping Into the Sea
By Jonathan Mirsky
China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power
by Nicholas D. Kristof, by Sheryl WuDunn
Random House, 501 pp., $25.00
Mandate of Heaven: A New Generation of Entrepreneurs, Dissidents, Bohemians, and Technocrats Lays Claim to China's Future
by Orville Schell
Simon and Schuster, 464 pp., $25.00
'Be sure to prevent any contact between the barbarians and the population,' the Emperor Qianlong ordered in 1793. This is one of the many pointed epigraphs in China Wakes, and it shows what Chinese rulers knew for centuries: that, for the emperors, it was dangerous for their own people to know about other worlds. It might cause them to doubt, and doubt in China led to disbelief, which could lead to luan, disorder, which is what Chinese rulers today also say is the main enemy.
Review, 3571 words
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