Paul Cooper examines the remarkable story of the Han Dynasty, the first empire of ancient China. Using ancient Chinese poetry, songs and folk music, he traces the first empire's rise, its remarkable technological advances, and its early, tentative attempts to make contact with the empires of the west. Finally, he looks at all the reasons behind the first age of Imperial China's final, dramatic collapse which left a city in ruins, a dynasty in tatters and an empire in ashes.
—Anonymous