"After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world's most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire, with literacy reserved for the elite few. In Kingdom of Characters, Jing Tsu argues that China's greatest and most daunting challenge was a linguistic one. Just as important as China's technological and industrial advances and political maneuvers was the century-long fight to make the Chinese language-with its many dialects and complex character-based script-accessible to the modern world of global ...
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"After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world's most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire, with literacy reserved for the elite few. In Kingdom of Characters, Jing Tsu argues that China's greatest and most daunting challenge was a linguistic one. Just as important as China's technological and industrial advances and political maneuvers was the century-long fight to make the Chinese language-with its many dialects and complex character-based script-accessible to the modern world of global trade and digital technology. Kingdom of Characters follows the bold and cunning innovators who adapted the Chinese language to a world defined by the West and its alphabet: the exiled reformer who risked a death sentence to advocate for Mandarin as a national language, the Chinese Muslim poet who laid the groundwork for Chairman Mao's phonetic writing system, the imprisoned computer engineer who devised input codes for Chinese characters on the lid of a tea cup, among others. Without the advances they enabled, China might never have become the dominating force we know today. The revolution of the Chinese script is just as breathtaking as China's transformation into a capitalist juggernaut, in large part because those linguistic innovations literally enabled China's reinvention. With larger-than-life characters and an unexpected perspective on the major events of China's tumultuous twentieth century, Tsu reveals how language is both a technology to be perfected and a subtle yet potent power to be exercised and expanded"--
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Add this copy of Kingdom of Characters: the Language Revolution That to cart. $2.87, good condition, Sold by Goodwill Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Hillsboro, OR, UNITED STATES, published 2022 by Riverhead Books.
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Add this copy of Kingdom of Characters: the Language Revolution That to cart. $3.86, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2022 by Riverhead Books.
Add this copy of Kingdom of Characters: the Language Revolution That to cart. $3.86, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2022 by Riverhead Books.
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Add this copy of Kingdom of Characters: the Language Revolution That to cart. $5.49, good condition, Sold by St. Vinnie's Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Eugene, OR, UNITED STATES, published 2022 by Riverhead Books.
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Good. Stains on outside cover inside the book. Cover Case has some rubbing and edgewear. Access codes CD's slipcovers and other accessories may not be included.
Add this copy of Kingdom of Characters (Pulitzer Prize Finalist): the to cart. $5.53, fair condition, Sold by Goodwill Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Hillsboro, OR, UNITED STATES, published 2023 by Riverhead Books.
Add this copy of Kingdom of Characters (Pulitzer Prize Finalist): the to cart. $6.44, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published by Riverhead Books.
Add this copy of Kingdom of Characters (Pulitzer Prize Finalist): the to cart. $6.44, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published by Riverhead Books.
