{"product_id":"2026200016977-secondhand-to-change-china-western-advisers-in-china-1620-1960","title":"To Change China: Western Advisers In China 1620-1960","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: No dust jacket\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good\u003cbr\u003eCondition remarks: Condition as shown in image\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor three and a half centuries, a parade of Western missionaries, soldiers, doctors, and engineers arrived in China convinced they held the keys to its transformation — and To Change China is the masterful chronicle of their triumphs, failures, and profound self-deceptions. Jonathan Spence presents sixteen vivid biographical portraits of Western advisers — from the Jesuit Adam Schall in the seventeenth century to the American General Joseph Stilwell in the mid-twentieth — each of whom sought to reshape the Middle Kingdom in their own image, only to find themselves reshaped, diminished, or expelled by a civilization of staggering resilience and complexity.\n\nSpence, one of the foremost Western historians of China, writes with a rare combination of scholarly precision and narrative elegance, illuminating the persistent arrogance that underlay even the most well-intentioned Western interventions. This edition includes a new introduction and conclusion that deepen the work's already considerable analytical power. What emerges is not merely a history of individuals, but a searching meditation on the nature of cultural contact, imperial ambition, and the West's enduring — and endlessly frustrated — desire to remake the world in its own likeness. Who, in the end, was changed?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49269354299611,"sku":"2026200016977-SECONDHAND","price":10.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/3366f173-830b-4a19-a98a-a922ca87583e.png?v=1788999290","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200016977-secondhand-to-change-china-western-advisers-in-china-1620-1960","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}