Linda Jaivin at Gleebooks in the lauch of her new book The Shortest History of China in conversation with Benjamin Law.

From kung-fu to tofu, tea to trade routes, sages to silk, China has influenced cuisine, commerce, military strategy, aesthetics and philosophy across the world for thousands of years.

Certainly, Chinese history is sprawling and gloriously messy. It is full of heroes who are also villains, prosperous ages and violent rebellions, cultural vibrancy and censorious impulses, rebels, loyalists, dissidents and wits. Women in China, from the earliest warriors to twentieth-century suffragettes. Historical spectres of corruption and disunity continue to haunt the People’s Republic today.