When life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life that you have a thousand reasons to smile. Petersburg, charged by Czar Nicholas II to secretly collect intelligence on the Qing Dynasty's sweeping reforms that were radically transforming China. The last czarist agent in the so-called Great Game, Mannerheim chronicled almost every facet of China's modernization, from education reform and foreign investment to Tibet's struggle for independence.
On July 6, , writer Eric Enno Tamm boards that same train, intent on following in Mannerheim's footsteps. Initially banned from China, Tamm devises a cover and retraces Mannerheim's route across the Silk Road, discovering both eerie similarities and seismic differences between the Middle Kingdoms of today and a century ago. Along the way, Tamm offers piercing insights into China's past that raise troubling questions about its future.
Can the Communist Party truly open China to the outside world yet keep Western ideas such as democracy and freedom at bay, just as Qing officials mistakenly believed? What can reform during the late Qing Dynasty teach us about the spectacular transformation of China today?
Eric Enno Tamm. Download pdf. Recommend Stories. Idea Transcript. It combines a long and arduous physical journeyβfrom St. Petersburg across the Tibetan Plateau and the Gobi Desert to Beijingβwith revelations of espionage in virtually unknown territory in the early years of the twentieth century. At its core, this is a journey into the soul of the Middle Kingdom and the roots of modern China.
Altogether a wonderful book. He currently lives and works in Ottawa. Petersburg, charged by Tsar Nicholas ii to collect intelligence on the sweeping reforms radically transforming China. What can the reforms of the late Qing Dynasty teach us about the spectacular transformation of present-day China? No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency Access Copyright.
