Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China
by Hessler, Peter
- Used
- Paperback
- Condition
- Very good. No dust jacket as issued. National Book Award Finalist sticker on front cover. Cover has slight wear and soiling.
- ISBN 10
- 0060826592
- ISBN 13
- 9780060826598
- Seller
-
Silver Spring, Maryland, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Synopsis
From the acclaimed author of River Town comes a rare portrait, both intimate and epic, of twenty-first-century China as it opens its doors to the outside world.A century ago, outsiders saw Chinaas a place where nothing ever changes. Today the coun-try has become one of the most dynamic regions on earth. That sense of time -- the contrast between past and present, and the rhythms that emerge in a vast, ever-evolving country -- is brilliantly illuminated by Peter Hessler in Oracle Bones, a book that explores the human side of China's transformation.Hessler tells the story of modern-day China and its growing links to the Western world as seen through the lives of a handful of ordinary people. In addition to the author, an American writer living in Beijing, the narrative follows Polat, a member of a forgotten ethnic minority, who moves to the United States in searchof freedom; William Jefferson Foster, who grew up in an illiterate family and becomes a teacher; Emily,a migrant factory worker in a city without a past; and Chen Mengjia, a scholar of oracle-bone inscriptions, the earliest known writing in East Asia, and a man whosetragic story has been lost since the Cultural Revolution. All are migrants, emigrants, or wanderers who find themselves far from home, their lives dramatically changed by historical forces they are struggling to understand.Peter Hessler excavates the past and puts a remarkable human face on the history he uncovers. In a narrative that gracefully moves between the ancient and the present, the East and the West, Hessler captures the soul of a country that is undergoing a momentous change before our eyes.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Ground Zero Books (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 61623
- Title
- Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China
- Author
- Hessler, Peter
- Format/Binding
- Trade paperback
- Book Condition
- Used - Very good. No dust jacket as issued. National Book Award Finalist sticker on front cover. Cover has slight wear and soiling.
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- Reprint. Ninth printing
- Binding
- Paperback
- ISBN 10
- 0060826592
- ISBN 13
- 9780060826598
- Publisher
- Harper Perennial
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 2007
- Keywords
- Anyang, Terrorism, Luch Chao, Mengija Chen, Cultural Revolution, Dorr-Oliver, Falun Gong, William Foster, Imre Galambos, Hu Xiaomei, David Knightly, Victor Mair, Olympic Games, Uighurs, Zhoa Jingxin
Terms of Sale
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Ground Zero Books
About Ground Zero Books
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Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Reprint
- Any printing of a book which follows the original edition. By definition, a reprint is not a first edition.
- Trade Paperback
- Used to indicate any paperback book that is larger than a mass-market paperback and is often more similar in size to a hardcover...