Written for a broad audience, this book provides a coherent reevaluation of Western ideas about China. It covers perceptions of China from the earliest times through the late 1980s and draws on a range of sources, including literature, journalism, and the arts, to show how changing power relations have influenced Western ideas about China, its people and its history. The book describes in particular how China has served both as a model and as a threat for different schools of thought in the West.