In The Military History of China, bestselling author Erik Durschmied traces China's passage through a thousand years of war, colonial adventurism and internecine politics, and seeks to understand what this huge and unstoppable country is today - as well as what the future holds for a fragile world in which China is the latest economic and military superpower.

Long the world's most populous country, China has always flexed its muscles beyond its borders, for all its contemplative religion and dreamlike art. Catastrophic clashes with other countries are a thread woven into the fabric of the nation's history. Today China stands on the threshold of global economic domination, a true rival to the United States: in a generation or so it will be twice as wealthy as the US, Britain, France, Germany and Italy combined.