Customer Reviews

The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds

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This is an odd book, one of those curious fish that escape the nets of genre. Is is history? Sort of. Literary Criticism? Perhaps. Cultural anthropology? In a way.

It's well worth reading, but it's not an entirely successful book. In a way Spence's great virtue is his downfall here. He's too generous and open a reader, too ready to take the Western traders, soldiers, missionaries, and men of letters on their own terms. He'll follow them anywhere -- and the result is a rather unfocused phantasmagoria, a bewildering palimpsest of Chinas. One of Spence's main points is that the Chinas in Western minds have no necessary connection to each other, or to the "real" China -- and it's a point well-taken -- but the result is a diffuse and slightly out-of-focus book. It's history in the strict sense, when it intriguingly evaluates Marco Polo's credibility. It's history in the 19th Century vein (that's praise, in my book) when it presents the tragedy of an isolated missionary's wife betrayed to an unmerited violent death in the Boxer rebellion. It's cultural anthropology when it evaluates Mark Twain's simultaneous racism and anti-racism. It's pure literary criticism as it meditates on Kafka, Malraux, and Borges. It's very good in each mode. But the different modes don't really inform and enrich each other. The book remains a collection of disparate pieces, each very good of its own kind, but it never reaches the higher unity that we look for (maybe unfairly, maybe unwisely) in a cross-disciplinary book.

Still it is a great read, and its sheer variety (and the display of Spence's remarkable virtuosity) is entrancing. It may be disorienting, but it's never boring. Anyone whose fate makes them one of that other species of curious fish -- those who swim in between the East and West, being wholly of neither the one nor the other -- will want to read it.

This book offers an interesting portrait of China from the time of Marco Polo (13th century) to present day. As with all of Spence's books, the level of detail is sufficient yet not overwhelming. The book recounts numerous passages by various travelers who visited China over the course of 700 years. Would recommend this book to anyone interested in Chinese history or to anyone interested in learning about how the West has viewed China past and present.

In Jonathan Spence's "The Chan's Great Continent", the author takes an interesting approach to Chinese history: examining how the West viewed China (and usually tranformed it into their own image). I really enjoyed the first half of the book, and thought that Spence's idea of Marco Polo possibly not really reaching China proper a very interesting and provocative theory, which I do agree with, based on the evidence. However, as I read the later chapters, there seemed to be endless repetition of the same points: Westerners who used Chinese characters to point to evils in their own society; Westerners who saw China as an earthly paradise superior to the West; and racist views on how Chinese were treated in the West, especially America. Not that I don't think these points important, but frankly, I became confused by the last chapters, dealing with the 20th century; I think the book runs out of steam by the last third, and Spence does not go into detail with some of the authors and events that he is describing. If you know little about China, the later chapters will not help your understanding. I do recommend this book, but knowledge of Chinese history would be beneficial to fully comprehend the excellent points Spence makes.

The work is a fascinating studying of how one culture misunderstands and bends another's reality to its own dreams, fantasies, etc. Compare to 'Prisoners of Shangrila'. Now if somebody could write a study of China's awesome misunderstanding of the West, we'd be on to some communication. Note: For reviewer Zhu Yuan Zhang, the reason /Chan/ appears in the title of the book is that that is the old transliteration of the Mongol /Qan/ (< [Turkic] Qaghan) or 'Emperor'. Chinggis Khan, Qinghis Qan, etc. It was the Mongol Empire which first smashed both China and Kievan Rus' to create a Eurasian empire. You can figure out the rest.

The Chan's Great Continent by Jonathan Spence is an entertaining book that looks at a culture (China) through the perspective of another culture (European and American) over many centuries. It begins with Marco Polo and ends in the twentienth century. It is fascinating to watch the image of China change over time, not to meet reality but to serve the ends of the viewer. This brief study is a wonderful way to see how image can be and is manipulated by the observer. This book draws on the accounts of literture, missionaries, historians, politicians, travelers, merchants and many others in its eclectic ride through the centuries. It is both knowledgable and entertaining and worth a read.

It's great! Although some historic characters I want to see didn't show up, I still enjoy reading it.
Seeing how western people though about our culture hundred of years ago makes me laugh. Maybe you westerns would laugh, too. If you know how we Chinese thought of you long time ago...

The subtitle of this book is clear. THE CHAN'S GREAT CONTINENT: CHINA IN WESTERN MINDS is not a history of China. It is a history of Western thinking, using "China" as a mirror. Sometimes, the image distorts the subject, but its not China we are looking at. As an expatriate living in Korea, who is daily confronted with the distortions and limitations of my own western thinking, the concept of an "Asia" or "China" is more dangerous and loaded than all the jingoistic slogans ad agencies produce.

Each chapter is a look at some (or many) pieces of literature or criticism, making the whole book more literary criticism than history (the nod to Harold Bloom should be a big clue to this). So many major and minor works are examined, that it is clear, that "China" could never be so much to so many, even over time. What is documented here, is the Western need for dualism and aggrandiazement at the expense of an "other".

The book is actually better-written than it should be, like William James. It should be dry and abtuse, like some bad literary criticism. Spence's skill as a popular writer makes the exposition too slick. This is a specialist work masquerading as popular history.

If read correctly, this book should shock and humble. After all, why do Westerners find so much that is different in "China"? Why are there conclusions so off-mark? This book is not a history of China, but a history of Western errors.

A very eye-opening treatise of how the Western minds from Marco Polo to Pearl Buck and then to Kissinger have shaped the West¡¯s opinion on China. From the admiration of Chinese cultural superiority in the Middle Ages to the fantasizing of it as a land of mystery and exotics, and then recently to demonization as a hotbed of madness and radicalism, Spence masterfully points out the mystery of Western fascination with China as a subconscious self-projection of the most truthful kind. This book will help those of us interested in China mission to begin to set aside the centuries-old stereo-types of the Chinese by respecting them as unique individuals which will inevitably result in our missionary endeavor becoming much more effective.

Far from me to speculate on the quality of the research done by the author in order to write this book. Or to criticize him for stressing some stuff that actually does not seem very important in trying to understand such a great civilization relations with the world. The strength of this book, for me, resides more in its quality of case study on how a culture is seen by people ignorant of that very same culture. Today, in spite of Internet and CNN we can see too many examples of generalizations toward other cultures (all latinos eat hot spicy foods). Mr. Spence gives us a very enjoyable book, apparently well documented, instructive, and that makes us think about what happens today when we look above our fence. A very worthy read.

I think that it's great! Though some characters I whant to know dont show up in this book, I still enjoy reading it.
Seeing how western people thought about Chinese hundred of yaers ago made me laugh. And I believe that you would also laugh, if you know how Chinese thought of your culture long time ago...