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