Over the past decade, there has been an increasingly significant amount of interest in China, the country, its people and its culture, amongst the general population of the United States. Since opening its doors to market-oriented development, factors such as increased tourism, international trade and technological advancements have all contributed to the desire and need to better understand China, as it becomes a dominant player in the 21st Century global economy. With over 4,000 years of history behind it, the subject of China is not an easy one to comprehend for the uninitiated.
Funded by an endowment from the Chynn Family Foundation, the K.Y. Chynn Book Award for Chinese Studies recognizes aspiring, meritorious and noteworthy authors, writing on Chinese subjects in the English language, by providing them with a $1,000 award for their work. The Book Award supports literature that promotes greater awareness and better understanding of Chinese history, culture, and people in the United States and other English-speaking countries.
Past Recipients
2008 – Simon Winchester
Author, The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom (2008)
In The Man Who Loved China, Simon Winchester brings to life the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge scientist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, long the world’s most technologically advanced country. Both epic and intimate, The Man Who Loved China tells the sweeping story of China through Needham’s remarkable life. Here is an unforgettable tale of what makes men, nations, and, indeed, mankind itself great.
2007 – Dr. W. Scott Morton & Dr. Charlton M. Lewis
Co-Authors, China: Its History & Culture (2004, 4th Edition)
This brilliantly lucid and concise study traces China’s history and culture from Neolithic times to the present, working into an integrated and authoritative narrative that covers centuries of politics, warfare and government, science and technology, economics and commerce, religion, philosophy, and the arts. Most valuable of all, Dr. Morton illuminates the essential Chinese design, the underlying mental set of the people and the society. He has given approximately equal treatment to all premodern periods, as each has its importance in the evolving history of the Chinese experience, and has illustrated the work with numerous photographs, maps, paintings and drawings and quotations from the literature.
Newly updated and revised, China: Its History and Culture, Fourth Edition, also carefully examines the crucial social and economic changes that have taken place in China over the last decade.
