Wan Qing qi shi nian (Tang Degang zuo pin ji. Min guo tong shi. Wan Qing dao lun pian)

by 唐德剛

Chinese

Genres: History, China

Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[treetree · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

An overall nice guide of the history from Late Qing dynasty to the republic. The closing of Ancient China has prompted a bunch of interesting characters and events. The writing of Tang is more of a lively speaking tone rather than a cool analyzing one, it is no surprise that he is most known for his oral history series. So this is a stepping stone for further research into the time period and worth a quick read.

從太平天國寫到民國，唐德剛不算太學院派但也還頗得古風的行文令這個系列可稱不錯的入門書。而唐著史也見人，他並非單純以冷靜客觀的口吻在紀錄，而是偏向嬉笑怒罵臧否人物，所以生動可讀，也難怪唐是以口述史見長。但相應地，如果想看學術性強或者十分詳盡深入的專著，則這本未免太敲門磚性質。

ps唐自己也是清末民初生人，難免有國仇家恨民族主義情結，並不介意其顯山露水。這點代溝讀來有時也頗有百感交集之嘆，幸而（我的幸而而已）唐長居美國，對歷史還是有seeing the big picture的把握，所以整體還是公道誠懇的。那個他心心念念的歷史三峽，身在其中的我輩倒是拭目以待了。

[Candycassidyjqw]

worth noting is that quite a few consider his work disproportionally subjective and emotion laden.

[Yifei Sun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting books. It stuns me how the generals and officials were lying to the emperors/empress about the actual situation. The Chinese emperors refused to acknowledge the backwardness of the regime and technology. The traditional Chinese culture attributed the lost of the war to lack of courage and determination of the generals. Even the generals know that there was little hope to beat cannons with arrows, they were afraid of reporting the truth. Instead they just collided with the western invaders and tried to strike a deal, but reporting to the empress they were winning the battle.

This is exactly why Qing was overthrown. Even some of the officials had the intention for a modern reform, the resistance inside the system will be so big that nothing would get done.