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Jing Liu

The Making of Modern China: The Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty (1368-1912) (Understanding China Through Comics, 4) Paperback – Illustrated, November 28, 2017

by Jing Liu (Author)

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"Does what it sets out to do and serves as a Chinese history text teenagers might actually read." —Asian Review of Books on Division to Unification in Imperial China

The fourth volume in the Understanding China Through Comics series covers the stunningly productive Ming dynasty and its fall to the Manchus under the Qing, the last Chinese dynasty. The book also addresses Wang Yangming's School of Mind and the painful process of modernization and conflict with the West and Japan, including the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion. Includes timeline.

Jing Liu is a Beijing- and Davis, CA–based designer and entrepreneur who uses his artistry to tell the story of China.

Reading age

10 years and up
Print length

176 pages
Language

English
Dimensions

6 x 0.5 x 7.9 inches
Publisher

Stone Bridge Press
Publication date

November 28, 2017
ISBN-10

1611720397
ISBN-13

978-1611720396
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From the Publisher

The fun and easy way to learn about China's history from ancient to modern, for children and adults

Review

"A great way to learn about China's vast history!"

—Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club

"Excels at clarifying the often-confusing transitional periods between dynasties… An excellent introduction to the large trends of early Chinese history.”

—School Library Journal

"Chinese language is being taught in all but one state... A comic format teaching China's history is the perfect companion."

—US-China Review

"Combines breezy style with historical rigor to strike just the right gong-tone for a middle school audience approaching the vast scope of Chinese history."

—Education About Asia

5/5 Stars "An invaluable source... Chinese history is a vast subject, but Jing Liu has a skillful ability to condense it all into an interesting and manageable narrative."

—Kids' Book Buzz

"The combination of silhouettes—often threatening, martial ones—with open-faced, expressively individualized figures of many social classes adds dramatic tension while neatly balancing the big-picture narrative. There's a lot to absorb even in this abbreviated form, but the visual approach lightens the load considerably."

—Kirkus Reviews

"The lucid, economical text makes one eager for successive volumes."

—Booklist

"Simple and effective…This direct, appealing introduction to the foundations of one of the world’s oldest civilizations is recommended for teens and adults."

—Library Journal

"Given China's superpower ambitions, it goes without saying that our politicians must pick up a copy."

—HuffPost

"A clear and concise survey of Chinese history and culture that is sure to please."

—The Comics Grinder

4.5/5 Stars "A very nice way to establish a foundation to understanding China’s history and a possible gateway to more intense study and comprehension of a very complex subject."

—Portland Book Review

"The book does what it says it does: a child will come away with a basic understanding of early Chinese history, what makes the Chinese tick as a people and culture."

—Asian Review of Books

"It is certainly a fascinating look at Chinese history, and doing it in comics has certainly made it more accessible to people, especially for the Western world."

—Radio Australia

Teacher and Professor Testimonials

"This book is “The Magic School Bus” for those starting to explore Chinese culture."

—Dan Cao, Instructor at Confucius Institute at UC Davis

"An excellent history that clearly explains the great (and ordinary) people who have made China what it is and the conflicts and debates that have shaped Chinese history. There is nothing else like it in English or Chinese."

—Alan Baumler, Professor of History at Indiana University of Pennsylvania

"No more burying yourself in text-heavy history books to learn about China, this comic-style book manages to be rich in information and bring Chinese history to readers in a more clear, fun, and accessible way than it’s ever been done before. Easily integrated into a social studies or Chinese culture curriculum, I can’t wait to get a copy for my class."

—Grace Zeng, Chinese Teacher and Middle School Chinese Curriculum Area Leader at International School of Beijing

"Jing Liu has brought to life the long and complex early period of Chinese history in this wonderful graphic novel. Foundations of Chinese Civilization is a delight to read; humorous, informative, and truly captivating."

—Alexandra Pearson, Founder of The Bookworm Literary Festival

"Since the 1990s, Jing Liu has been entertaining and informing foreigners about China with his cartoons. His new series of comic books is a fun, easy, accessible way to gain a basic understanding of Chinese history and culture."

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Founder of Danwei

"This comic series is fantastic to use in the classroom. My students are drawn to this book - not only do they enjoy this graphic-novel style, it also helps them understand difficult historical concepts. What a fun supplement to the regular textbook!"

—Leslie Burgoine, Middle School History Teacher, Portland, Oregon

"I was really impressed with how the author explained, taught, explored and visually told the story of China. Impressive and very informative. It was not only a page turner for me, but my students would run into class to get their hands on a copy to keep reading!"

—Sasha Johnson, World History Teacher at Black Pine Circle School, Berkeley, CA

About the Author

Jing Liu is an artist and entrepreneur from Beijing, China. He is currently the Managing Director of Moli Design, a China-based design firm that counts the BBC, MasterCard, The Ford Foundation, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and UNICEF among its many clients. Liu graduated from Beijing University of Technology with undergraduate degrees in industrial design and engineering, and a masters in international economics and trade.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Stone Bridge Press; Illustrated edition (November 28, 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 176 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1611720397
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1611720396
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 10 years and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.5 x 7.9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #58,469 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #11 in General China Travel Guides
- #46 in Educational & Nonfiction Graphic Novels
- #86 in Biographies & History Graphic Novels

Customer Reviews:
57 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		88%
4 star		8%
3 star		4%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Wilson Jones

Well done

Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2020

Verified Purchase

A thoroughly enjoyable introduction to Chinese history for one who doesn't have time to be deeply interested.

Helpful

Danielle Hendrick

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2018

Verified Purchase

Great! Informative!

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Constantine Alexos

China

Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2018

Verified Purchase

I used it for school

Helpful

William Stephenson

Basically a story with picture. Unfortunately, the pictures ...

Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2018

Verified Purchase

Basically a story with picture. Unfortunately, the pictures are not integral to the book, but seem to be there to give space to a dry topic.

Helpful

The history of China in comic book format

Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2017

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

This series is great! This is book 4 of 5 of a comic book history of China. I found the first book hard to follow ( it covered 2,700 BC up to 200 AD, and was like a blow by blow of barbarian hords doing the same thing over and over), but other books in the series have been awesome. If you want a comic book history of China, your only options are this 5 book series with lots of info and a portion of Larry Gonick's History of the Universe.

It may be that Chinese living in the U.S. want to get a bit of history to their kids and these might be good for that. Or, anyone might want a history of China since it isn't taught here. The comic book format is definite faster to read than a book of dense text, and the different format might appeal to people who wouldn't otherwise be as interested. This series isn't particularly graphic for sex or violence and seems to minimize these, but not censored either. There are many pics of blood dripping off swords but no graphic sex scenes and nothing is used as an excuse for lots of gore or smut. But, yeah, history has a lot of violence, so there it is. For young kids, you might want to read first. For adults who grew up in the U.S. and never got any history of China in school (this is me), this series is a fast read. The comic format is used mainly to give visuals of things like a map with an army or something that doesn't exist now, like an old fashioned piece of equipment.

This book covers 1368 up to 1912, or the middle ages in Europe up to World War 1. This was pretty interesting to me, more so than previous books, because it gets into more recent times and so seems more relevant. Events were easy to follow. As books come out, the series has gotten better and started to do more of what comics can do that books can't. For example, in this one, emperors tend to have a distinctive feature, like big huge chin or something, so I can tell each character apart from page-to-page and that helps me keep thing straight, which I definitely have trouble with when I read a book.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

I loved this book and will likely get the others -to read myself and for my children.

Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2018

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

Chinese history spans thousands of years and it can be intimidating to learn about all the peoples and places over such a long period of time. However, I found that this book did a remarkable job keeping it interesting. Obviously it is not a history text, but I cannot think of another style of book that a young person might actually read on his or her own without it being "work".

It reads like a graphic novel, and it visually depicts major events and concepts in Chinese History. For example, the Opium Wars, the Sino Japanese War, and the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions are all represented with action scenes and maps and keep both the mind and the eye engaged.

The book also even attempts to go into detail about certain less obvious concepts that were greatly important in certain periods of Chinese history -like the collapse of the economy and devaluation of paper currency, the rise of pirates or emperors, and the role of religion. And because each topic only exists on a few pages, and is accompanied by sometimes very detailed illustrations (though all in black and white), and is interspersed with maps, text boxes, and word balloons, the journey remains really interesting.

I imagine I would have benefited if I had read these graphic novels before undertaking more serious studies because it would have provided a great foundation for later learning.

Highly recommended,

One person found this helpful

Helpful

A great way of taking Chinese history that is so complex and creating a comic book that makes it easier for people to understand

Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2018

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

When I was in college, I had the opportunity to take a class on China for my minor. While I did quite well in the class, learning about the various Emperors and Dynasties was not easy.

But writer/artist Jing Liu has figured out a wonderful way to reach out to those who are interested in studying Chinese history and that's through comics!

I recently read "The Making of Modern China: The Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty (1368-1912) (Understanding China Through Comics)" from Stonebridge Press and this timeline is important to learning how China began its way of modernization but also the challenges that were met after China was invaded by the Monguls but how various Emperor's had difficult of trying to find out how to continue the country's stability with various currency and taxation.

But how China had to endure corruption from officials, to overprinting money or not having enough silver to provide currency of the country's growing population.

And due to bad leadership, bad planning and a growing population, trying to please the people through little taxation but then not having any currency to provide stability to the people made things difficult. As certain areas did well, smaller locations in the country side and mountainous regions started to become angry as they did not have the same type of treatment and they rebelled.

And with too many rebellions happening throughout China, it no doubt caused instability.

While things got better in the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the need of silver led to the country of opening its ports to people from other countries and when Britain brought Opium to China, that changed things as it drained the economy of silver in China and increased opium addiction inside the country which led to the first Opium War.

Seeing how China's openness to foreign trade led to China using their money and military to fight the British, which the British had superior weaponry and firepower and ushering China into Modernism.

There is so much that happens between 1368-1912 and Jing Liu does a magnificent job of showcasing history in a simplistic way for people to read and understand China's history and how they entered into modernism but also how it led to turmoil within the country and with other countries.

It's a well-written comic and educational as well!

Overall, I was really pleased with "The Making of Modern China: The Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty (1368-1912) (Understanding China Through Comics)" and I definitely recommend it!

One person found this helpful

Helpful