On the Road

By Pico Iyer on May 17, 2001

Books that “follow in the steps of” a well-known traveler are more and more ubiquitous these days, but many of them are slightly suspect. Following in the footsteps of some distinguished predecessor can look a little like a gesture of defeat, suggesting that all the world’s used up: everywhere we go nowadays, somebody’s been there before us, often with a notebook, and prose more durable than our own, and all we can do is shuffle after, comparing our perceptions with those of the earlier luminary, and presenting the reader with a kind of before-and-after tableau.

Un-Chinese Activities

By Jonathan Mirsky on May 17, 2001

In the first week of November 1728, China’s Emperor Yongzheng (who reigned between 1723 and 1735) ruled over something like 200 million people and the vast territory that Beijing today claims as the People’s Republic. He had plenty on his mind. He was only the third ruler since 1644, when his non-Chinese forebears, the Manchus, seized Beijing from the Ming dynasty, established the Qing dynasty, and with the collaboration of many Chinese, but by no means all, set about conquering China.