On July 6, 1906, Baron Gustaf Mannerheim--who decades later became the President of Finland--boarded the midnight train from St. Petersburg, charged by Tsar Nicholas II to secretly collect intelligence on the Qing Dynasty's sweeping reforms that were radically transforming China. The last Tsarist agent in the so-called Great Game, Mannerheim chronicled almost every facet of China's modernization, from reform of education, foreign investment and industry to the military, Muslim borderlands and Tibet's struggle for independence. On July 6, 2006, writer Eric Enno Tamm boarded 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. Trekking overland 17,000 kilometres to Beijing, he runs a gauntlet of political and geographic extremes including some of the world's hottest deserts and cruellest dictatorships. 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 a century ago? What can reform during the late Qing Dynasty teach us about the spectacular transformation of China today? 'Study the past if you would divine the future,' wrote Confucius. Tamm's epic quest turns out to be a cautionary tale.--Book's website.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 958/.041
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 22
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- Geographic Area Code
- e-ur---
- ISBN
- 9781553656388 9781553652694
- LCCN
- DS735
- LCCN Item number
- T35 2010eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaOONL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (496 p.)
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)slc00228280 (OCoLC)656132998 (CaOOCEL)443068
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL
Table of Contents
- THE HORSE 3
- THAT LEAPS 3
- THROUGH 3
- CLOUDS 3
- CONTENTS 6
- NOTES 9
- PROLOGUE 11
- Crossing the Mannerheim Line 11
- E U R A S i A 21
- ST. PETERSbURG 25
- The Secret Agent 25
- AzERbAiJAN 43
- The Nobels Prize 43
- TURkMENiSTAN 63
- Fear and Loathing 63
- UzbEkiSTAN 81
- The Great Game Redux 81
- Travels on the Synthetic Road 105
- W E S T E R N C H i N A 129
- Mission Impossible 133
- TO kHOTAN 161
- Oases and Outposts 161
- TiAN SHAN RANGE 179
- The Horse That Leaps through Clouds 179
- URUMqi 201
- The Banquet 201
- TO DUNHUANG 219
- Treasure Hunt 219
- HEXi CORRiDOR 239
- Barbarians Inside the Gate 239
- LANzHOU 265
- The Chinese Renaissance 265
- LAbRANG 289
- Stoned 289
- N O R T H E R N C H i N A 311
- XiAN 313
- Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics 313
- HENAN 337
- The Harmonious Countryside 337
- TAiyUAN 361
- Opium of the People 361
- WUTAi SHAN 383
- The Wanderer 383
- The Soot Road 399
- Reawakening 419
- EPiLOGUE 451
- To the Finland Station 451
- ACkNOWLEDGMENTS 465
- A NOTE ON SOURCES 469
- ENDNOTES 471
- SELECTED bibLiOGRAPHy 491
