Rating: 
Summary: Add culture and you have brilliance
Review: Finally,a text that does not read like one!Spence should be given a congratulatory note by all students of Chinese history. His work, physically voluminous and heavy, is anything but when the front cover is opened. I was immediately hooked from the retelling of Manchu invasion in 1644 to the Taiping Rebellion led by "God's Chinese Son" to Mao's Communist takeover in October of 1949. Remember, however, that this is a text and explores only historical events and not the cultural context of Chinese history. He does not go in to much detail regarding the cultural context of Chinese history(but that is not his purpose). For that you need to read some of his other works. If you are looking for an understanding of modern Chinese history/culture you might want to look at James Hersey's "A Single Pebble" or Pearl Buck's "The Good Earth", "Donald Duk" and "China Wakes." All are great works that compliment Spence's factually rich text.
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Summary: A feast of history and difficult issues
Review: For anyone interested in contemporary China, this books provides the necessary historical backdrop in great and well reasoned detail. In my reading, Spence explains better than anyone why the Chinese currently prefer stability over democracy and why the country has made a slow and halting entry into the modern world. While making no excuses for the excesses of the Party's leadership, Spence chronicles the immense change that Mao and his successors initiated, not from the standpoint of solely the 20th Century, but over the last 300 years. If you are looking for a single book that provides a 360° view of the evolution of this ancient and complex civilisation, this is the book for you. Spence is also a master of eloquent and concise prose, refreshingly un-academic in tone and yet a brilliant synthesis of contemporary research.
Rating: 
Summary: The Search For Modern China?
Review: For the sake of brevity, I should point out in one stroke that this "history on China" is one of the shallowest work on the subject I have ever read. Even if only taking the small sample of books on China here at Amazon.com, one would discover that most works are superior in knowledge and analysis. This book further confirms my earlier suspicions of Spence's fitness to be considered a reputable historian on China. His writings are no better than his lectures at Yale, as they all suffer from the same chronic syndrome of his personal prejudices at the expense of decent history writing. I find no choice but to admit that Spence is a self-styled "authority" more than anything else. I notice that certain reviewers on this site give acclaims to Spence solely because his book is easy to read and follow according to them. Maybe that should be a hint, not to the high quality of the book, but to some people's willingness to accept the most naive and simple views on history.
Rating:
Summary: fluff and b.s.
Review: hate to breakup the love fest in these pages, all from former students and other young, naive college undergrads, but this book is a joke. Only the uninformed read Spence, and certainly not any Chinese. His histories of pre and eraly modern China lack detail, substance, and any evidence he has kept up with recent scholarship of, say, the last 20 years. And, worse yet, he has little to say about modern/Communist China, except for the same crap you can read in any newspaper/wire service. A much,much better book on China (modern), and one better respected within the profession/education establishment, is/are Maurice Meisner's books and the Mao and Deng eras. He writes lucidly too, and unlike Spence, is capable of sustaining an argument and not lt\etting his own self/ego get in the way.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent history for the novice
Review: I enjoyed this book for several reasons. The writing is excellent. It does not read like dry history. The author starts with the fall of the Ming dynasty. This is an excellent choice. By starting here, the reader better understands why China views the west it does. This places current events more in historical perspective. I also liked the author making value judgments about various historical figures and events. I am sure these value judgments will provoke controversy by the academic community. Spence does a good job of showing that the Communist revolution was more than a cult of Mao. Others were involved and Mao had his limits of power. This book is an excellent choice for someone who knows little about Chinese history but wants a quick survey of recent history. As for weaknesses, I thought the coverage of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution was weak. The horror of these two events is discussed too dispassionately. If readers have no previous knowledge of these two events, it is hard from this text to understand the nature of the true tragedy. As a disclaimer, I am not a scholar of Chinese history. I had only read a few books and have had no academic courses in Chinese history
Rating:
Summary: THIS BOOKS SUCKS!
Review: I found over 200 better books. Wow! For Intellectuals and butt kissers this book is ideal. Spencer doesn't follow any specific CHRONOLOGY of the significant events that evolved during the periods covered in the book. The Maps Suck as well. I can't find anything good to say about this book. Infact, I burned it! My Instructor should be shot and fired for picking this book! I'm not a PhD. but, I casn certainly write a better book and in language that is understandable. Hey! Keep Yale for the Yalie's and the rest of mankind from such an atrocious book. It's like living Tiananmen all over again. No one should be put through this absolutely boring book. The only decent Chapter was the last one in summary, besides it is to EXPENSIVE! I would give this book Zero Stars.
Rating:
Summary: Obligated material for everone who wants to understand China
Review: I have been to China now 3 times, if you include the time I went to Taiwan. Its the most (but also interesting) complicated culture you will ever find on this planet. But also the longest in its exsistence. They soke to the rest of the world as they were all Barbarians and with no doubt they had the right to do so. And then we westerns thing we have the right to judge about a culture thats nearly one time as old as our. Get out of here !!! I still remember I left Shang-Hai in the summer of 2001, having seen the most amazing things in a few places in China, but not only that I also tried to get an idea of the culture. No wonder I left China that day with only one thing in my mind. Piles of questions, questions that had to be answered !! I read a few things here and there, and had a bit of help from my travelguide, but in the end I was not making any progress. Till I deceide to write an article for school in which I explain and try to find out why the Chinese emppire fell in 1911. I soon fell on this book and began to read certain things. But since I was under high pressure I could only read what I needed. Later on I began to read it before I left China again, and finnished by the time I left China again in sept 2002. Now I had the feeling I understood China, that I could see through this amazing culture. Finally I could picture in my head what in all heaven was going on before the communists took power in 1949. Who was where, fighting for what and with who. You will all learn it. The book is mainly a historical research throught the last century of the history of China. You will begin in 1644, but the explenations of the Qing time only was asking for one thing "MORE" The part about the Cultural revolution was to terrible for me, and I was glad it was over. I read this soon after I watched Blue Kite & Farewell My Concubine, both movies dealing about the same tragic period. And in Beijing I saw several things of destroyed monuments that are the living prove of this terrible 1966. But what the book tells is is the truth, it was terrible !!! I read alot of other books about China, but none gave me such a good view on things than this book was offering me. Be sure to take a copy with you on your way to China. You dont want to hang around there without knowing who Qianlong was, I felt deeply ashamed that I didn't the first time, thank god I did knew it the last time.
Rating: 
Summary: not the stellar book it's purported to be
Review: I have diligently read Spence's book and confess that it reads well and certainly is a good introductory book on modern Chinese history. Yet the book is also fraught with mistakes that are sometimes glaring, such as the Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689 which Spence claims fixed the borders between Russia and China pretty much along the present existing borders. He neglects to mention that the treaty, denied access to the Russians the entire Amur valley and that by virtue of that treaty Sakhalin was off-limits to Russia until the 19th century. Chinese historical sources are conveniently ignored so that he may advance his politically correct western historian's view of China. Later in the book he glosses over the Rape of Nanking using data from the 1930's claiming that only 40,000 people were killed when newer sources of information are not only available but refute the older figures. If this book is going to be a standard text for students of modern Chinese history, then it needs a thorough review and edit to correct these mistakes.
Rating:
Summary: Elegant, unbiased, and insightful.
Review: I have taken Professor Spence's class, "The History of Modern China," for which this excellent book was specifically written. It is by far the most eloquent account of Chinese history I have encountered. The complexitites of Chinese culture and history become accessible because of Spence's phenomenal expertise and obvious passion for the subject. One cannot help but share his enthusiasm.
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Summary: Spence Was My Companion In China
Review: I just returned from a 15 day journey of The People's Republic of China with Spence's "The Search for Modern China" at my side. I read it before I left and I constantly read it during the trip. Not only is Spence THE authority on Chinese history in the U.S., but the Search for Modern China is THE authority of the last three hundred years of the Han. It excellently chronicles from the last Ming Emperor, through Qianlong and the Tiaping Rebellion, to Modern China starting with Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. His analysis of the successes and flaws of Mao Zedong and those in his wake such as Deng Xiaoping is tantalizing. It is brilliantly organized and told in an interesting and beautiful manor. Spence has outdone himself and topped various other hostorians. With this book he deserves to be ranked with William Shirer, Author Goldschmidt, Jr., and Stephen Ambrose.
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