Kingdom of Characters - A Tale of Language, Obsession, and Genius in Modern China
Reduzierte Artikel in dieser Kategorie
13,99 €
| Verlag | Penguin Books UK |
| Auflage | 2023 |
| Seiten | 336 |
| Format | 12,9 x 19,8 x 1,9 cm |
| B-format paperback | |
| Gewicht | 246 g |
| Artikeltyp | Englisches Buch |
| EAN | 9780141985312 |
| Bestell-Nr | 14198531EA |
A PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST
A riveting, masterfully researched account of the bold innovators who adapted the Chinese language to the modern world, transforming China into a superpower in the process
What does it take to reinvent the world's oldest living language?
China today is one of the world's most powerful nations, yet just a century ago it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, left behind in the wake of Western technology. In Kingdom of Characters, Jing Tsu shows that China's most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: to make the formidable Chinese language - a 2,200-year-old writing system that was daunting to natives and foreigners alike - accessible to a globalized, digital world.
Kingdom of Characters follows the bold innovators who adapted the Chinese script - and the value-system it represents - to the technological advances that would shape the twentieth century and beyond, from the telegram to the typewrite r to the smartphone. From the exiled reformer who risked death to advocate for Mandarin as a national language to the imprisoned computer engineer who devised input codes for Chinese characters on the lid of a teacup, generations of scholars, missionaries, librarians, politicians, inventors, nationalists and revolutionaries alike understood the urgency of their task and its world-shaping consequences.
With larger-than-life characters and a thrilling narrative, Kingdom of Characters offers an astonishingly original perspective on one of the twentieth century's most dramatic transformations.
Rezension:
Enchanting... [Tsu's] love for the enigma and beauty of Chinese shines through in this delightful mix of history and linguistics... A pleasure to read Michael Sheridan Sunday Times
