China Revealed: Portrait Of The Rising Dragon: A Portrait Of The Rising Dragon [Hardcover]

'photographic masterpiece... The wide array of revealing images is inspiration fuel for any wannabe travel photographers.' (DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHER )

'A staggering portrait of China today' (WANDERLUST )

'The images of Basil Pao... portray the diverse culture, people and landscape of a country in transition.' (FINANCIAL TIMES )

'China, for long a closed book to the West, is beginning to open up. Pao explores its beauty, its tensions, and its rich cultural traditions.' (GOOD BOOK GUIDE )

'A staggering portrait of China today'

'The images of Basil Pao... portray the diverse culture, people and landscape of a country in transition.'

'China, for long a closed book to the West, is beginning to open up. Pao explores its beauty, its tensions, and its rich cultural traditions.'

China, a country of 1.3 billion people in the grip of an industrial revolution absorbing a large part of the world's resources, was until relatively recently a closed book to most in the West. With the advent of the Olympic Games in Beijing more and more people will visit this vast country and with that in mind the Hong-Kong based, internationally celebrated photographer and writer Basil Pao determined to travel through every province of China, recording history and landscape, people and places, to give a comprehensive snapshot of China today. By turns lyrical and exquisite, stark and brutal, his informative text and powerful photographs show a country in transition. A country whose four thousand years of cultural history are being rediscovered, and where new urban wealth and rural poverty coexist uneasily as a new regime tackles a legacy of corruption, of anarchy under Mao's cultural revolution and repression in its aftermath. CHINA REVEALED is a profoundly important and visually stunning record of one of the most powerful nations on earth.

Basil Pao began his photographic career in 1980 on his return to Hong Kong after 10 years in the United States, where he was an art director for recording companies Atlantic and Polygram in New York and Warner Brothers Records in Los Angeles. His work during that time included the book for the Monty Python film LIFE OF BRIAN, where he first worked with Michael Palin. They have since collaborated on nine books based on the travel series POLE TO POLE, FULL CIRCLE, HEMINGWAY ADVENTURE, SAHARA and HIMALAYA. He also created the limited edition books AMAN and BHUTAN for Amanresorts. His travel essays and other works, including photographs for Bernardo Bertolucci's THE LAST EMPEROR and LITTLE BUDDHA, have appeared in publications and exhibitions all over the world.