Kingdom of Characters
Kingdom of Characters tells the dramatic, century-long story of how Chinese characters defied predictions of obsolescence to become a cornerstone of the digital age. Set against China’s chaotic modernization—from the fall of the Qing Dynasty to the rise of global tech—this book follows unsung heroes like Wang Zhao, a fugitive reformer who developed the first national phonetic alphabet, and engineering student Zhou Houkun, who raced to build the first Chinese typewriter in early 20th-century America. It traces pivotal battles: securing fair telegraph rates for Chinese, competing to create efficient character indexing systems, launching simplified characters and Pinyin, and breaking through barriers to digitize Hanzi for computers. Finally, it reveals high-stakes political and cultural negotiations behind integrating Chinese characters into the global Unicode standard. More than a technical history, it’s a tale of resilience, showing how language became a tool of national identity and technological power.