Modern China: a guide to a century of change by 
China and the World by
As the world evolves in increasingly unpredictable directions, one of the key determinants of the future global order will surely be the impact of China. No country and no society can escape China's reach - indeed many seek its embrace. China brings benefits to many - but it's also aproblematic interlocutor for others. In China and the World, one of the world's leading China specialists David Shambaugh has assembled fifteen leading international authorities on China to create the most comprehensive and up-to-date scholarly assessment of China's foreign relations and roles ininternational affairs.The volume covers China's contemporary position in all regions of the world, with all major powers, and across multiple arenas of China's international interactions. It also explores the sources of China's grand strategy, how the past shapes the present, and the impact of domestic factors that shapeChina's external behavior. China and the World is a uniquely focused and well-organized volume that provides many insights into China's calculations and behavior, and identifies a number of challenges China will face in the future.
The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State by
"In The Third Revolution, eminent China scholar Elizabeth Economy provides an incisive look at the world's most populous country. Inheriting a China burdened with slowing economic growth, rampant corruption, choking pollution, and a failing social welfare system, President Xi has reversed course, rejecting the liberalizing reforms of his predecessors. At home, the Chinese leadership has reasserted the role of the state into society and enhanced Party and state control. Beyond its borders, Beijing has recast itself as a great power and has maneuvered itself to be an arbiter--not just a player--on the world stage. Through an exploration of Xi Jinping's efforts to address top policy priorities--fighting corruption, controlling the internet, reforming state-owned enterprises, improving the country's innovation capacity, reducing the country's air pollution, and elevating its presence on the global stage--Economy identifies the tensions, shortcomings, and successes of Xi's first five years in office. Xi's ambition, she argues, provides new opportunities for the United States and the rest of the world to encourage greater Chinese contribution to global public goods but also necessitates a more proactive and coordinated effort to counter the rapidly expanding influence of an illiberal power within a liberal world order. This is essential reading for anyone interested in both China under Xi and how America and the world should deal with this vast nation in the coming years"
Chairman Mao by
This biographical documentary from cable's History Channel profiles Communist party leader Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (1893-1976). One of the most formidable leaders that the world has ever seen, Mao was undeniably a brilliant political and economic mind, despite his role as a progenitor of 20th Century Communism and a homicidal despot. This program tells Mao's unusual story - how he decided, early on, that he must "destroy" his country in order to liberate it through reconstruction. In the process, he harnessed the Chinese extremist youth movement and single-handedly brought about the notorious Cultural Revolution, while murdering millions. The film draws on a wealth of archival material to tell this strange, disturbing story, and also interpolates interviews with several individuals who lived through Mao's terrors.
The most populous country in the world, China has a 4,000-mi (6,400-km) coast that fronts on the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea.