Overview

"The whole Communist world is in the middle of a democratic revolution. Hall Gardner's novel depicts the protests taking place prior to the June 1989 Tiananmen Square repression-a subject still taboo in China. Hired to teach English, Mylex H. Galvin records his experience in his ""Anti-Marco Polo"" journal after he meets expats from around the world, while trying to come to grips with the Chinese language, history, and politics. Galvin becomes disillusioned with the poverty and environmental destruction that he finds in China; his barefoot doctor heroes are not capable of treating AIDS; Chinese and African students clash in Nanjing-with no sense of international solidarity. As the democracy movement heats up, he is torn between the love of Tao Baiqing, a Daoist, and Mo Li, a student of English Lit, and unwittingly betrays the ties between the journalist, Hayford, and the democracy activist, Chia Pao-yu-accused of leaking ""top secrets"" to Hayford. As Galvin studies China's relations with the Western world since Marco Polo, with emphasis on the ""hundred years of humiliation,"" he becomes haunted by nightmares of a ""clash of civilizations"" and warns against a coming Apocalyptic Color War between the Balding Eagle and the Chinese Dragon-as the latter transmogrifies from Red into shades of Red-Brown-Black."

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9783838202426

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Reviews

"Hall Gardner's Year of the Earth Serpent Changing Colors is an engrossing and inventive contribution to what might be called the literature of human understanding. One of the book's messages, that, ""individuals and governments rarely think about the fact that the very manner and means in which one seeks to change the world--and the very colors that one chooses-- could actually make things turn for the worse"" is needed, in this, an age of great power rivalry, now more than ever.--James W. Carden, Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy. Hall Gardner's wonderful Year of the Earth Serpent Changing Colors offers an extraordinary illustration of the dynamics of humiliation and delivers a lesson the world would needs to learn. Research shows that humiliation is the most intense human emotion -- it leads to the mobilization of more processing power and a greater consumption of mental resources than any other emotion. Victims of humiliation never forget. Humiliators, on the other hand, are often oblivious of their deeds or they justify them (even while being silently consumed by their own deeds from inside). Therefore, humiliators are often shocked when confronted with the consequences of their deeds, be it revenge coming their way or attempts of peace making.--Evelin Lindner, Dr. med., Dr. psychol., founding president of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies and co-founder of the World Dignity University initiative How much do we know about China? Year of the Earth Serpent Changing Colors is filled with the history, politics, religion and culture of this nation. Gardner's book is a balance between an encyclopedia and a novel...A big country demands a big book.--E. Ethelbert Miller, Writer, literary activist, and host of On The Margin"

"Hall Gardner, a prominent professor at the American University of Paris whose prolific writings on international relations range widely across the past and present, has drawn on his personal experiences teaching in China in 1988-1989 to produce an interesting hybrid volume. A mixture of memoir and a somewhat autobiographical novel, his book also seeks to analyze China's internal policies and its relations with the rest of the world, and suggest remedies for the ever-growing tensions between China and the West.--Priscilla Roberts, City University of Macau ""H-Diplo"" Hall Gardner's Year of the Earth Serpent Changing Colors is an engrossing and inventive contribution to what might be called the literature of human understanding. One of the book's messages, that, ""individuals and governments rarely think about the fact that the very manner and means in which one seeks to change the world--and the very colors that one chooses-- could actually make things turn for the worse"" is needed, in this, an age of great power rivalry, now more than ever.--James W. Carden, Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy. Hall Gardner's wonderful Year of the Earth Serpent Changing Colors offers an extraordinary illustration of the dynamics of humiliation and delivers a lesson the world would needs to learn. Research shows that humiliation is the most intense human emotion -- it leads to the mobilization of more processing power and a greater consumption of mental resources than any other emotion. Victims of humiliation never forget. Humiliators, on the other hand, are often oblivious of their deeds or they justify them (even while being silently consumed by their own deeds from inside). Therefore, humiliators are often shocked when confronted with the consequences of their deeds, be it revenge coming their way or attempts of peace making.--Evelin Lindner, Dr. med., Dr. psychol., founding president of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies and co-founder of the World Dignity University initiative How much do we know about China? Year of the Earth Serpent Changing Colors is filled with the history, politics, religion and culture of this nation. Gardner's book is a balance between an encyclopedia and a novel...A big country demands a big book.--E. Ethelbert Miller, Writer, literary activist, and host of On The Margin"

Author Information

"Hall Gardner is Full Professor in the Department of History and Politics and former Chair of the Department of International Politics from Spring 1992 to Spring 2019 at the American University of Paris, France. His publications include: Toward an Alternative Transatlantic Strategy: Biden, the EU, and the ‘new’ Multilateralism (2022); IR Theory, Historical Analogy, and Major Power War (2019); World War Trump: The Risks of America’s New Nationalism (2018); American Global Strategy and the ""War on Terrorism"" (2005/2013); and The Wake-Up Blast: Thirty Years of Poetic Protest (2008)."

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