This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Ruth Lectures.

This lecture in the series Chinese Vistas, given by Professor Jonathan Spence, was originally broadcast in 2008.

Hello and welcome to the British Library in London.

Sometimes called the nation's memory, it houses millions of valuable items, including Magna Carta, Leonardo

da Vinci's notebook and the National Sound Archive. It also houses the oldest book in the world,

which was printed in 868 AD in China. This Chinese connection makes it an appropriate place in which to start this year's Reith Lectures.

Our subject on this their 60th anniversary is China, and our lecturer, a man steeped in knowledge of this vast country,

which of course in two months' time plays host to the Olympic Games and is currently struggling to overcome the aftermath of a terrifying earthquake.

The title of the lectures is Chinese Vistas.

China's breathtaking economic growth over the last 25 years has transformed it into a great power.

At the same time, for many people in the West, its extraordinary past makes

it an object of suspicion and mistrust. But there can be no doubt that it's a country which will

have a significant influence over all of our lives in the years to come. In these lectures,

we'll be exploring how it works and what makes it tick. Our guide is a man who knows China very well

indeed. He's Sterling Professor of History at Yale University and is recognized as one of the

foremost scholars of Chinese civilization from the 16th century to the present day. To understand China

today, he says, you have to understand its past. In his

first lecture, he's going back two and a half thousand years to Confucius, a man whose thoughts

and ideas permeate the fabric of his country and make him still relevant to the China

of today. The first lecture is called Confucian ways.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the 60th anniversary BBC Reith Lecturer Jonathan Spence.

Thank you. Well, thank you for that warm welcome.

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