The essential history of modern China, told through the story of one family

'A brilliant personal account of China's borderlands and peoples' Francis Fukuyama 'A splendid journey through eighty years of Chinese history ... Edward Wong is about as knowledgeable a guide to China as a reader could ever hope to find' Barbara Demick The son of Chinese immigrants in Washington, DC, Edward Wong grew up among family secrets. His father toiled in restaurants and rarely spoke of his native land or his years in the People's Liberation Army under Mao. Yook Kearn Wong came of age during the Japanese occupation in World War II and the Communist revolution, when he fell under the spell of Mao's promise of a powerful China. His astonishing journey as a soldier took him from Manchuria during the Korean War to Xinjiang on the Central Asian frontier. In 1962, disillusioned with the Communist Party, he planned a desperate escape to Hong Kong. When Edward Wong became the Beijing bureau chief for The New York Times, he investigated his father's mysterious past while assessing for himself the dream of a resurgent China. He met the citizens driving the nation's astounding economic boom and global expansion - and grappling with the vortex of nationalistic rule under Xi Jinping, the most powerful leader since Mao. Following in his father's footsteps, he witnessed protests and civil rights struggles in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong. And he had an insider's view of the world's two superpowers meeting at a perilous crossroads. Wong tells a moving chronicle of a family and a nation that spans nearly a century of momentous change and gives profound insight into a new authoritarian age transforming the world. A groundbreaking book, At the Edge of Empire is the essential work for understanding China today.

"Astonishing ... A humane, moving story against a massive canvas of China's rise to power" - China’s Good War

"Utterly gripping and original ... an unforgettable account of the country's recent past and present" - Maoism: A Global History

"In the age of the instant expert, Edward Wong is the real thing ... [A] blend of epic family memoir and deeply insightful reporting on the rise of an increasingly autocratic China under Xi Jinping" - The Retreat of Western Liberalism

"A fascinating read ... a beautifully-written personal account of China's rise to a superpower ... vividly told" - Scattered Sand: The Story of China's Rural Migrants

"Edward Wong's exquisite family chronicle achieves a level of humane illumination that only one of America's finest reporters on China could deliver ... A profound story of modern China itself" - Age of Ambition

"Edward Wong is about as knowledgeable a guide to China as a reader could ever hope to find ... [Brings] it all vividly to life in a way no other book on China has for me" - Eat the Buddha and Nothing to Envy

"A seamless and engaging hybrid narrative that reminds us it's people who write history" - My Old Home

"This sparkling book ... tells a story of greater China that is both intimately personal and fundamentally global, a journey steeped in trauma, nostalgia, and even poetry that only [Wong's] reporting talents could conjure" - Washington Post

"It is rare for a book to combine past and present, personal history and the history of a vast nation with such thoughtfulness, grace, and panache" - Our Country Friends

"A true epic and an extraordinary work of reportage. The son of two empires, Edward Wong is admirably clear-eyed in his ability to weave the personal and intimate with the monumental" - Land of Big Numbers

"A masterpiece ... a must-read for anyone with the faintest interest in China, America's relationship with China, and the whole question of empire in the contemporary world" - Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA’s Covert War in China