El Gran Estado

China, the largest nation on earth, is one of the oldest states in the world. It has practically maintained the same borders since the 13th century, when it was invaded by the Mongols from Kubilai Khan, who founded the Yuan dynasty and created the mighty Great State that Marco Polo described to us in his diaries. Over the centuries, powerful internal interests tried to keep China isolated, and thus its image was coined in history. Timothy Brook, however, shows that he was never out of step with the rest of the world; and he does so through particular stories, of notable people from the country and humble people, with whom he narrates what the structures of the Great State were like, how they lived through wars, diplomacy, vassalage, religion, invasions from and to towards the steppe, the arrival of new ideas and technologies, the blurred line between trade and piracy, between resistance and complicity with the colonial powers. That is, the relationship of China with the rest of the world throughout the last eight centuries, from the time of the Yuan dynasty to the present day, through the periods of the successive Ming and Qing dynasties, the republic and the communist regime. "The Great State" is a story of how the Chinese see themselves and have seen each other over time, and how this has influenced their way of acting, both within the country and beyond its borders, both in the past and present. A book that will help to understand the world of today and tomorrow in its relations with China.