China, Portrait of a Country (Taschen GmbH)

This book brings together a vast selection of images aby Chinese photographers since 1949, giving readers a visual journey across the great People's Republic; edited by esteemed photojournalist Liu Heung Shing, longtime Associated Press correspondent and Time magazine contributor.In post-Mao China, late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping urged his one billion countrymen to "seek truth from facts." Taking its cue from Deng's overture, China today is the leading economic story of the 21st century. The process aby which China navigated the path from periphery to a central position in world affairs dominates the debate about Asia and China's relationship to the western world. Pulitzer-winning photojournalist Liu Heung Shing charts the visual history of sixty years of the People's Republic (1949 to 2008), and along the way aims to illustrate its humanistic course.