Jonathan Fenby – författare

In 1850, China was the 'sick man of Asia'. Now it is set to become the most powerful nation on earth. The Penguin History of Modern China shows how turbulent that journey has been. For 150 years China has endured as victim of oppression, war and famine. This makes its current position as arguably the most important global superpower all the more extraordinary. Jonathan Fenby's comprehensive account is the definitive guide to this remarkable transformation.'His book is a miracle of thoroughness, truthfulness and readability - the perfect primer for a time when China is about to enter all our lives' - Sunday Telegraph'Jonathan Fenby's ... illuminating book [is] the first major history that looks at the country with the eyes of the 21st century rather than the 20th' - Rana Mitter, Financial Times'Reads like a novel and is never less than thoughtful and compassionate for the fate of a much-abused people ... [Fenby has] a journalist's eye for telling detail' - Herald'Taut, anecdote-studded ... a great introduction for a general audience, with vivid scene setting and character sketches' - Michel Sheridan, Sunday Times'For an accessible, authoritative, fair and comprehensive and well written account, this would be hard to better' - BBC History'A wonderful history of modern China and a cracking good read' - Chris Patten

The magnificent wonders of China, ancient and modern, revealed by an international team of leading scholars from Asia and the West. China is the oldest continuous civilization on earth and holds a unique global place in the 21st century, this book’s uniquely wide focus shows what makes it such a special country, with topics stretching from the natural wonders including mountains and rivers to the Silk Road, the technological innovations of printing and the compass and the modern vibrant cities of today as well as famous monuments such as the Forbidden City in Beijing and the Great Wall. In this new and updated edition, a team of leading scholars from Asia and the West provide an unmatched account of this vast country. Beyond the quality of the individual entries, The Seventy Wonders of China provides an unmatched account of Chinese history and culture as well as an essential contribution to understanding and appreciating this vast country.

Chiang Kai-shek was the man who lost China to the Communists. As leader of the nationalist movement, the Kuomintang, Chiang established himself as head of the government in Nanking in 1928. Yet although he laid claim to power throughout the 1930s and was the only Chinese figure of sufficient stature to attend a conference with Churchill and Roosevelt during the Second World War, his desire for unity was always thwarted by threats on two fronts. Between them, the Japanese and the Communists succeeded in undermining Chiang's power-plays, and after Hiroshima it was Mao Zedong who ended up victorious. Brilliantly re-creating pre-Communist China in all its colour, danger and complexity, Jonathan Fenby's magisterial survey of this brave but unfulfilled life is destined to become the definitive account in the English language.

With a narrative as briskly paced and vividly detailed as an international thriller, this definitive biography of Chiang Kai-shek masterfully maps the tumultuous political career of Nationalist China's generalissimo as it reevaluates his brave but unfulfilled life. Chiang Kai-shek was one of the most influential world figures of the twentieth century. The leader of the Kuomintang, the Nationalist movement in China, by 1928 he had established himself as head of the government in Nanking. But while he managed to survive the political storms of the 1930s, Chiang's power was continually being undermined by the Japanese on one side and the Chinese Communists on the other. Drawing extensively on original Chinese sources and accounts by contemporaneous journalists, acclaimed author Jonathan Fenby explores little-known international connections in Chiang's story as he unfolds a story as fascinating in its conspiratorial intrigues as it is remarkable for its psychological insights. This is the definitive biography of the man who, despite his best intentions, helped create modern-day China.

With the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815, the next two centuries for France would be tumultuous. Bestselling historian and political commentator Jonathan Fenby provides an expert and riveting journey through this period as he recounts and analyses the extraordinary sequence of events of this period from the end of the First Revolution through two others, a return of Empire, three catastrophic wars with Germany, periods of stability and hope interspersed with years of uncertainty and high tensions. As her cross-Channel neighbour Great Britain would equally suffer, France was to undergo the wrenching loss of colonies in the post-Second World War as the new modern world we know today took shape. Her attempts to become the leader of the European union is a constant struggle, as was her lack of support for America in the two Gulf Wars of the past twenty years. Alongside this came huge social changes and cultural landmarks but also fundamental questioning of what this nation, which considers itself exceptional, really stood - and stands - for. That saga and those questions permeate the France of today, now with an implacable enemy to face in the form of Islamic extremism which so bloodily announced itself this year in Paris. Fenby will detail every event, every struggle and every outcome across this expanse of 200 years. It will prove to be the definitive guide to understanding France.

The Times Book of the YearBBC History Magazine Book of the YearDaily Telegraph Book of the YearBOOK OF THE WEEK - The Times‘The strength of this book lies in the cold realities it delivers. “The thirteen months of 1947-48,” writes Fenby, “provide trenchant examples of how realpolitik can serve a wider purpose if those in power know how to use it.” Crucible captures perfectly the urgency of the time…Read this book for the light it shines on a turbulent time; cherish it for the lessons it provides’ - Gerard DeGroot'Looking back 70 years Jonathan Fenby argues convincingly that the period from 1947 to 1948 “really did change the world”.  His book is an assured gallop across the terrain of contemporary history in this fateful year. The global devastation of the second world war had smashed longstanding institutions and bankrupted empires, leaving behind the kind of power vacuums that were major openings for change and chaos.  Crucible swings from one region to the next in a fast-moving account of how local actors filled those vacuums, often with violence.’Mary Sarote, Financial TimesOne year shaped the world we know today. This is the page-turning story of the pivotal changes which were forged in the space of thirteen months of 1947-48  Two years after the end of the second conflict to engulf the world in twenty years, and the defeat of the Axis forces of Germany, Italy and Japan, this momentous time saw the unrolling of the Cold War between Joseph Stalin's Soviet Russia and the Western powers under the untried leadership of Harry Truman as America came to play a global role for the first time.The British Empire began its demise with the birth of the Indian and Pakistan republics with the flight of millions and wholesale slaughter as Vietnam, Indonesia and other colonies around the globe vied for freedom. 1948 also marked the creation of the state of Israel, the refugee flight of Palestinians and the first Arab-Israeli war as well as the victories of Communist armies that led to their final triumph in China, the coming of apartheid to South Africa, the division of Korea, major technological change and the rolling out of the welfare state against a backdrop of events that ensured the global order would never be the same again.  This dynamic narrative spans the planet with overlapping epic episodes featuring such historic figures as Truman and Marshall, Stalin and Molotov, Attlee and Bevin, De Gaulle and Adenauer, Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek, Nehru and Jinnah, Ben Gurion and the Arab leaders. Between them, they forged the path to our modern world.

China's spectacular growth and expanding global role have led to visions of the 21st century being dominated by the last major state on earth ruled by a Communist Party. In this new edition of his widely acclaimed book, renowned China expert Jonathan Fenby shows why such assumptions are wrong. He presents an analysis of China under Xi Jinping which explores the highly significant political, economic, social and international challenges it faces, each involving structural difficulties that will put the system under strain.Based on the author's extensive knowledge of contemporary China and his close analysis of Xi's leadership, this incisive book offers a pragmatic view of where the country is heading at a time when its future is too important an issue for wishful theorizing.

China's spectacular growth and expanding global role have led to visions of the 21st century being dominated by the last major state on earth ruled by a Communist Party. In this new edition of his widely acclaimed book, renowned China expert Jonathan Fenby shows why such assumptions are wrong. He presents an analysis of China under Xi Jinping which explores the highly significant political, economic, social and international challenges it faces, each involving structural difficulties that will put the system under strain.Based on the author's extensive knowledge of contemporary China and his close analysis of Xi's leadership, this incisive book offers a pragmatic view of where the country is heading at a time when its future is too important an issue for wishful theorizing.

They were the most powerful rulers on earth. The mighty Qin Shi Huangdu (r. 221-210 BC), who began the construction of the Great Wall. The long-lived Han emperor Wudi (r. 141-87 BC), who developed China as a centralized Confucian state. The soldier-scholar Yongle (r. 1402-24 AD), who raised the Ming dynasty to its military peak. The dowager empress Cixi (r. 1861-1908 AD), who rose from humble Manchu origins to rule over all China. In The Dragon Throne, Jonathan Fenby tells the extraordinary story of imperial China through its 157 emperors, from Qin Shi Huangdu, who crushed his rivals to take supreme power as the first emperor in 221BC, until the final collapse of the faltering Manchu dynasty amidst the revolutionary chaos of the early twentieth century. The final emperor, the infant Puyi (r. 1908-12) ended his days as an assistant gardener in the very palace where he had been enthroned.

No leader of modern times was more unique and more uniquely national than Charles de Gaulle. As founder and first President of the Fifth Republic, General de Gaulle saw himself 'carrying France on my shoulders'. When he first emerged on to the world stage in 1940, his insistence that he spoke for his nation might well have appeared impossibly arrogant for a recently promoted junior general who had never been elected to anything. But he personified many of the traits of his country which fascinate the rest of the world - its pride in itself, its intransigence, its historical and cultural heritage and its quasi-religious belief in the state. Le General, as he became known from 1940 on, appeared as if carved from a single monumental block, but was, in fact, extremely complex, a man with deep personal feelings and recurrent mood swings, devoted to his family and often seeking reassurance from those around him. Though insisting on discipline and loyalty from others, he was a great rebel. A grand visionary with a vast geo-political grasp and elephantine memory, he was also a supreme tactician with a taste for secrecy and the ability to out-flank opponents.This is a magisterial, sweeping biography of one of the great leaders of the twentieth century and of the country with which he so identified himself. Written with terrific verve and narrative skill, and yet rigorous and detailed, it brings alive as never before the private man as well as the public leader through exhaustive research and astute analysis.

History, the collective experience of Mankind, teaches us about the present and the future. How do we look at events of the past? Do they help to solve our present political or economical conditions and conflicts? The essays in this anthology derive from the Engelsberg Seminar in 2019 that dealt with these questions. From perspectives as varied as the History of Ideas, Evolutionary Psychology, and Ideologies amongst others the writers apply history to today s concerns such as International Relations, Geopolitics, Economics, and the role of the individual and human nature in history. Perhaps it is only through applied history that we can find our way forward.

Med det kalla krigets slut och globaliseringens segertåg trodde många att nationalism hörde till historien. Men det visade sig vara tvärtom. Idag ser vi hur nationalismen sprids över hela världen. Samtidigt växer sig populistiska och anti-demokratiska rörelser starka. Att höra hemma någonstans tycks bli allt viktigare i en tid av ekonomisk och social osäkerhet. I en globaliserad värld förknippas därför identitet, medborgarskap och tillhörighet med födelseort och en fast plats att bo på. Essäerna i denna antologi är baserade på Engelsbergsseminariet 2017 där olika former av identitet knutna till olika samhällsbildningar granskades. Hur uppstår en nation? Hur skapas enighet i ett imperium med en mångfald av folk?Huvudredaktör för denna illustrerade antologi är Kurt Almqvist.