Kaleidoscope
Putting nations in perspective
By Andrew Moody (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-24 10:14
John Keay says when he was asked to write a major history of China he thought the idea was absurd and told his publisher this. "I said I didn't speak a word of Chinese and Chinese history is impenetrable to Western audiences. I can't think of anything more ridiculous."
Certainly, if you think China histories should be meticulously researched within the shadows of the Forbidden City, Keay might be regarded as an odd choice of writer.
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John Keay at his farmhouse in Dalmally, in Argyll, Scotland. |
His home at the end of a 5-km track in the West Highlands of Scotland is as far removed, both geographically and culturally, as one can imagine from the events charted in China: A History.
The 68-year-old is no stranger to writing about Asia, however. In a writing career that has produced 20 books in the last 30 years, his major titles include India: A History, The Spice Route, a history of the trade route, and Mad About the Mekong: Exploration and Empire in South East Asia.
After thinking over the China offer and doing some research, he eventually agreed to take on the commission.
"I did a bit of reading and thinking about it, got quite interested and I thought, 'Why not?'"
The book took three years to research and then write at a steady 500 words a day, in the study which he shares with his wife Julia, at their farmhouse in Dalmally, in Argyll.
He says he has no qualms about pronouncing on China history from a place so remote from modern Beijing.
"People on the move must find it pretty difficult to sit down and write anything. As you can see it is a pretty quiet place. It is actually ideal for study and for the long process of writing a book," he says, sitting in a comfortable chair beside his fireplace.
During the course of his research he did spend eight weeks, mainly traveling by railway, visiting museums and historical sites in different parts of China.
"I wanted to bring the history alive and to do that I needed some sense of the artifacts, art and architecture. I thought the museums in China were fantastic. I made a point of going everywhere independently. I hate being whisked around by hosts and dined and everything," he says.
He says that when it comes to writing about China history, a non-specialist has certain advantages and can bring a fresh perspective that can bring the subject alive.
"I actually find it quite useful not to be a Chinese specialist, to keep a certain distance between me and the subject. Sometimes, I feel a bit of a cowboy but I think it is the only way of doing it. My aim is to make Chinese history comprehensible and interesting," he says.
He admits one of the problems of writing about China history is that it is a subject that is part of the psyche and DNA of every living Chinese person.
"I am amazed every time I go to China or see a Chinese newspaper how much the past impinges all the time. Forever you are coming across references to Confucius or the first emperor, " he says.
"History has been used by every politician China has ever had - and one thinks, in particular, of Chairman Mao (Zedong) and Deng Xiaoping, summoning up historical precedents for their actions.
"How often would you get a British politician referring to Hereward the Wake, or King Harold?"
Keay courts some controversy in the book when he asserts that China's long 6,000-year continuous history is something of a myth, often a debating point among contemporary Chinese historians also.
He says it can't be continuous because there are major discontinuities and periods of chaos and confusion, such as the Warring States period between 770 and 476 BC.
Keay, the son of a merchant navy captain who met his mother on a liner, did not seem destined to be any sort of historian at all.
After his early education at the famous Catholic public school Ampleforth, he only managed a poor third class degree in modern history at Magdalen College, Oxford.
"I got a terrible degree. I didn't know what academic life was about at the time. I wish it had actually been a fourth because very few people used to get a fourth and that would have been distinguished in some way," he jokes.
His tutors at Oxford were the playwright Alan Bennett, who taught medieval history at the time, and the often-controversial historian A J P Taylor.
"He was absolutely loathed in the senior common room at Magdalen because they all thought he was a bit of a shyster and was really only interested in television and promoting himself," he recalls of the latter.
