''China and Russia: Four Centuries of Conflict and Concord'' is a

non-fiction Non-fiction (or nonfiction) is any document or content (media), media content that attempts, in good faith, to convey information only about the real life, real world, rather than being grounded in imagination. Non-fiction typically aims to pre ...

book by Philip Snow.

Background

The book examines the historical relationship between

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

and

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

over a span of four centuries. The book delves into the complex dynamics of their interactions as geopolitical powers with ideological differences, including their periods of conflict and periods of cooperation in

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

and the

Far East The Far East is the geographical region that encompasses the easternmost portion of the Asian continent, including North Asia, North, East Asia, East and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included in the definition of the term. In mod ...

. The book took nearly half a century to complete, and its origins can be traced back to a paper titled "Sino-Russian Relations from 1644 to the Present," which was originally written as part of Snow's final exams at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

in the mid-1970s.

Reception

Writing for ''

The Telegraph (London) ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'',

Christopher Harding Christopher Harding (born July 1978) is a cultural historian of modern India and Japan, lecturer in Asian history at the University of Edinburgh, broadcaster and journalist. His series on culture and mental health, ''The Borders of Sanity'', was b ...

writes, "Snow's ambitious, wide-ranging history covers everything from Mao's fraught relationship with Stalin to Tolstoy's interest in Daoism." Peter Gordon, the editor of the ''Asian Review of Books'' writes, "Snow himself is somewhat reticent to nail those patterns down but the overall impression is of a relatively feckless, ambivalent and inconsistent Russia compared with a more self-aware, clear- (if often steely-) eyed China, even during those periods when Russia seemed to hold the upper hand. Whether as cause or consequence, the book is written somewhat more from China’s perspective than Russia’s." Denis Staunton, the China Correspondent of ''

The Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It was launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is Ireland's leading n ...

'' writes, “Snow navigates this huge panorama with a fluency and a lightness of touch that makes his book a wonderfully readable guide.” Jerry Lenaburg writes for the ''New York Journal of Books,'' "Philip Snow offers a comprehensive history of the constantly changing, always tumultuous, and ever complicated interactions between these two countries that share the world’s sixth largest border. This is an incredibly timely book."

References

External links

Book review of China and Russia: Four Centuries of Conflict and Concord
by Sergey Radchenko
H-Diplo Roundtable on Snow, China and Russia
{{China–Russia relations 2023 non-fiction books Books about China Books about Russia Books about geopolitics Books about international relations China–Russia relations Yale University Press books