Michael Burleigh

The Eagle & the Dragon

The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present

By

Henry Holt & Co 693pp £31.15 order from our bookshop

Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power

By

Scribe 330pp £20 order from our bookshop

Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?

By

Scribe 364pp £18.99 order from our bookshop

Here are two ambitious books by US journalists who cover China, and a lesser effort by Harvard academic Graham Allison that does not match its portentous billing, though it will receive plenty of coverage. John Pomfret has reported on China for decades for the Washington Post and spends part of the year with his wife, a Chinese entrepreneur, in Beijing. His book is compendious in scope and offers a colourfully written history of American fascination with, and suspicion of, China and vice versa. Of course, the history of North America since 1776 is but a blip in the annals of imperial Chinese history.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • From the Archive: Martyn Bedford on Ian McEwan's 'Atonement' ,
    • In 'Silenced Voices' reports the ongoing story of the human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has been… ,
    • The mystery of Jack the Ripper's identity has long been agonised over. But what do we know about his victims?… ,
    • A piece of Literary Review history from way back in 1983: John Haffenden talks to the great Iris Murdoch. ,
    • Britain’s only travelling lit fest, the Garden Museum Literary Festival is heading to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for a… ,
    • 'The 19th-century German sage is not my idea of a pleasant travel companion' goes hiking with Friedr… ,
    • If you want ideas about what to read next, sign up to our free email newsletter, and get book reviews, archive mate… ,
    Follow Us