"Through a series of ... portraits of iconic modern Chinese leaders and thinkers, two of today's foremost specialists on China provide a panoramic narrative of this country's rise to preeminence that is at once analytical and personal. How did a nation, after a long and painful period of dynastic decline, intellectual upheaval, foreign occupation, civil war, and revolution, manage to burst forth onto the world stage with such an impressive run of hyperdevelopment and wealth creation--culminating in the extraordinary dynamism of China today?"--Book jacket.

Humiliation : Wei Yuan -- Self-Strengthening : Feng Guifen -- Western Methods/Chinese Core : Empress Dowager Cixi -- New Citizen : Liang Qichao -- Dish of Loose Sand : Sun Yat-sen -- New Youth : Chen Duxiu -- Unification : Chiang Kai-shek -- Not a Dinner Party : Mao Zedong -- Creative Destruction : Mao -- Black Cat White Cat : Deng Xiaoping -- Turmoil : Deng -- Entering the World / Zhu Rongji -- No Enemies, No Hatred : Liu Xiaobo -- Rejuvenation.