{"product_id":"kingdom-of-characters-pulitzer-prize-finalist-book-jing-tsu-9780735214736","title":"Kingdom of Characters (Pulitzer Prize Finalist)","description":"\u003cb\u003ePULITZER PRIZE FINALIST\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e A \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Notable Book of 2022\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e What does it take to reinvent a language?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world's most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, as the world underwent a massive technological transformation that threatened to leave them behind. In \u003ci\u003eKingdom of Characters\u003c\/i\u003e, Jing Tsu argues that China's most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: the century-long fight to make the formidable Chinese language accessible to the modern world of global trade and digital technology.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eKingdom of Characters\u003c\/i\u003e follows the bold innovators who reinvented the Chinese language, among them an exiled reformer who risked a death sentence to advocate for Mandarin as a national language, a Chinese-Muslim poet who laid the groundwork for Chairman Mao's phonetic writing system, and a computer engineer who devised input codes for Chinese characters on the lid of a teacup from the floor of a jail cell. Without their advances, China might never have become the dominating force we know today.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e With larger-than-life characters and an unexpected perspective on the major events of China's tumultuous twentieth century, Tsu reveals how language is both a technology to be perfected and a subtle, yet potent, power to be exercised and expanded.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49709376897297,"sku":"CIN0735214735G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50220949766417,"sku":"CIN0735214735VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51006240424209,"sku":"NIN9780735214736","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51491600072977,"sku":"GOR014302820","price":19.9,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0735214735.jpg?v=1751138094","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/products\/kingdom-of-characters-pulitzer-prize-finalist-book-jing-tsu-9780735214736","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}