Have you ever opened your grandmother’s jewelry box and been mesmerized by the glitter of gems? That same excitement flows in reading This is China. The publisher of the award-winning, five-volume Berkshire Encyclopedia of China was fortunate to select Haiwang Yuan to compress 2,754 pages on 5,000 years of history into four short chapters and still make it interesting and informative.

Yuan, a professor and assistant to the dean of University Libraries, is a scholar of prodigious talents. After arriving at Indiana University on a Fulbright scholarship to study American history, he became a refugee after the Tiananmen Square incident of June 3, 1989. After completing graduate degrees in history and library science, he found employment as a media services librarian in Florida and began developing his first websites, one on Chinese culture and another on Chinese pronunciation, which became widely used by parents adopting children in China. In 1997 he joined the faculty at Western Kentucky University, where his interest in Chinese folklore led to frequent trips back to China to collect and translate traditional Chinese folktales. In 2006 Libraries Unlimited published his “The Magic Lotus Lantern and Other Tales of the Han Chinese,” followed in 2008 by “Princess Peacock: Tales From the Other Peoples of China.” He was a major contributor to Routledge’s “Encyclopedia of Chinese Culture” in 2004. In 2009 National Geographic published his “Celebrate Chinese New Year” in their “Holidays around the World Series.” He is currently at work on a two-volume encyclopedia of Chinese ethnic groups. When not writing or designing mobile applications for the libraries’ websites, Haiwang teaches Chinese and recently led a winter term class on a tour of China from Hong Kong to Beijing. His Chinese dinners are legendary and he’s been known to sketch an entire map of China on the back of a napkin while offering bits of Chinese wisdom.

The four chapters in this book describe: the Land and People; Prehistory to the End of Empire; a Century of Change – from 1912 to the present; and China Today. To help you keep track of those confusing Chinese dynasties, a chart is included complete with a pronunciation guide and even a “Dynasties Song,” which when sung to the tune of “Frere Jacques” gets you from the Shang dynasty (1766-1045 BCE) to Mao Zedong (1949-1976).

From archaeological evidence from a cave in Anhui Province we discover that the earliest humans in China date from about 2.24 million years ago. Since then hundreds of ethnic groups have existed in the country over time. Today the largest group is the Han, who make up 91 percent of the total population of 1.33 billion. In addition, there are 55 recognized minorities of 110 million people. Sidebars describe the contributions of Confucius (551-479 BCE), China’s greatest philosopher; the Empress Wu Zeitan (625-705), the only woman to rule China as emperor; Chinggis Khan (Genghis), a title assumed by Temujin, who became the dominant power in Mongolia before conquering Northern China in the 13th century; Sun Yat-sen, who sought to build a strong modern China in the early decades of the 20th century; and Deng Xiaoping, who as leader in the 1970s and 1980s favored less government controls while still limiting political freedoms.

The editor poses many thought-provoking questions throughout. What does the divine right to rule imply? Did it originate with the Zhou Dynasty? If your government was limited to one political party … how would you go about effecting change?

The book ends with discussion of some uniquely Chinese concepts: harmony, l-jia (concern for one’s ancestral home), face (respect), gu-nxi (common experiences or connections) qingko (to please or invite guests) and insider/outsider (interpersonal relationships). While hundreds of millions of Chinese have been lifted from poverty over the last three decades, the challenge ahead for China is what the editor calls “a balancing act” of how to maintain its identity while acting effectively in the global community.

If you’re traveling to China, read this book before you go. If you’re teaching a unit on Chinese history and culture, this should be read by your students. If your company is doing business in China, this book will assist you. For everyone else, with China poised to become one of the dominant forces in this century, reading this book will help you better understand this unique people and their history.

— Brian E. Coutts and Peggy Wright, moderators, WKU’s Far Away Places Series at Barnes & Noble Booksellers.

At 7 p.m. Thursday at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Haiwang Yuan will give a presentation titled “China’s Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: A Look at a City Called Tianjin” and sign copies of his newest book.