English Encyclopedia a definitive China reference

By Zhang Dongya

After three years of work by 300 Chinese and foreign contributors, Berkshire Publishing Group has found success: a five-volume, 2,800-page text with 800 articles covering the history, politics and culture of China.

Since May, it has been adopted by many prestigious universities in the country, such as Peking University, and has been reviewed positively by major university libraries and public libraries in the US. It has also become a reference for corporations and government agencies such as the CIA. Berkshire is pitching it as the West’s best source of general and authoritative knowledge bout China.

“Westerners can tell you what famous events happened in 1492, but they have no idea what was happening in China. Our overall goal is to place China within global history  when a student thinks about a particular point in time, we want them to think about what was happening in China,” Karen Christensen, 52, chief publisher of Berkshire, said.

Choosing China

Founded in 1998, Berkshire is a small 10-staff publishing house located in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. It focuses on global subjects and has published a highly acclaimed series of encyclopedias. The Encyclopedia of China grew out of its landmark six-volume Encyclopedia of Modern Asia, published in 2002 with Scribners.

In the late 1990s, Christensen turned her attention to Asia. After one trip to China in 2001, she was fascinated by the country.

“I could feel the energy and determination of the whole opulation. I relished the conviviality and humor, and the sense of possibility I felt in the air along with an intense focus on what lay ahead,” Christensen wrote in the Introduction to the Encyclopedia of China. “It was all irresistible.

She became convinced that every American needed to know more about China’s history, culture, language, jokes, politics and economics. She thought they needd to understand Chinese perspectives in every area – in business, education, politics, innovation and personal life  to be ready for the 21st century.

The Encyclopedia of Modern Asia, covering nearly all aspects of 20th-century Asia, gave the team a jump start on its China project. Some authors from the Asia project continued their efforts in new China volumes, including the previous China editor Cheng Lisun of the University of Massachussetts Dartmouth.

“W were considering a similar book on India or Latin America, but for now we think China gives us more than enough to focus on,” Christensen said. “Right now, Western students know more about the solar system than they dabout China. We want to change this.”