Looking to the past to understand the future

Despite the country's growing power, it remains first and foremost a regional power, he says.

However, the big difference between China and the US in the early days of its ascent to international power is China's integration into the global economy, he says.

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"China's growth this way is different from any thing we've seen before, because its economic linkages are much greater than what we've seen with previous rising powers," he says.

The book, which was chosen by the Asia Society from more than 130 nominations, fits into the framework of the organization's own work to consider the depth of history in understanding the future, says Asia Society president Josette Sheeran.

"The past 250 years of foreign policy experience in China are probably the most important years for us to understand where China is headed in the future," she says. "Even though Westad is a historian, like all great historians[he] tells us more about the future than the past."

For the Norwegian-born and American-educated Westad, who first traveled to China as a foreign exchange student in 1979, the book represents the culmination of what has been the "great intellectual adventure" of his life: the belief that to understand China's present and future, a deep understanding of the past is necessary, he says.

"This book is a declaration of a great love affair with China," he says. "Beyond intellectual engagement, it is about a country that I carry with me-its sights, its sounds and smells."

Too often, nonfiction books are left unread by people outside a field of inquiry, Westad notes. With an approach that "stresses cultural transformations and hybrid identities as much as conflicts and nationalisms", he presents an alternative historical narrative that might surprise even longtime China watchers.