This book wasn't an easy read, and not only because it was often rather a plod for the general reader - like me!. As with other books I've read and reviewed for Independent Australia it was also one I read while negotiating an unexpectedly personally challenging time, when all I really wanted to do was sink into a mindless fluffy fiction book and push the horrors of the world away for a few hours. In the end I did both, which resulted in taking rather longer to read the China book than I would usually do for a review copy. But for all its historical detail, which was overdone sometimes, the book is a fascinating insight into how trade between China and Europe had such an impact on how the world is today - and shows the parallels between how trade influences the relationships between countries, both then and now. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose . . . and all that.
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