Publications

  • The Boxer Rebellion. Beijing 1900

    • A book of historical importance which, after the passage of a century, reopens a series of diplomatic controversies and explains the fall of the Celestial Empire. The Boxer assault on the foreign legations is recreated thanks to the rediscovery of a case of diplomatic papers belonging to the Italian marquis, Giuseppe Salvago-Raggi, ambassador to China in 1900. The distant events are related in the light of new historical evidence emphasising the roles of the Western Powers, and opening the way for a new understanding of the history of modern China. A new examination of the evidence given by those involved shows that the "55 Days of Beijing", for over a century, contained a political secret revealed by the papers in the diplomatic briefcase: the assassination of the German ambassador, Von Kettler, whose death, quite incredibly, had been announced by the British press five days earlier.

  • An eyewitness in Beijing

    • In December 2008, thirty years after the Chinese economic reforms, People's Editions, the biggest and most important publishing house in Chinese, in the past responsible for the works of Mao Zedong, published in Chinese and English the volume "An Italian Journalist in Beijing" by Adriano Màdaro. The author recounts his experiences of visiting China over thirty years, from 1976 to the present, and includes 200 of his own photographs of Beijing taken during this time. Màdaro's work was selected by the government department in charge of the celebrations from 3,000 proposals from as many different publishing houses. Since the beginning of January the book has been available in bookshops throughout China and will be officially presented in a public ceremony in Beijing in February 2009.

  • Autumn in Korea

    • (Edizioni del Sigillo, 1990 / cm.17x24 / 222 pp.)

      The diary of a journey on either side of the 38th parallel which Adriano Màdaro made alone in the autumn of 1988, first in North Korea, crossing Manchuria by train, then in the South. The first part of the book is a reproduction of the original diary, written by hand between 15 and 31 October, with maps and drawings; the second part is the diary in the form of a printed text. Adriano Màdaro was the first Western journalist to visit North Korea after the country had been closed to foreigners for 43 years. This piece of reportage is especially valuable for the picture it gives of the last "red enclave".

  • The days of Tien An Men

    • (Edizioni del Marcopolo, 1990 / cm.17x24 / 415 pp.)

      A first-hand account of the bloody events of the spring-summer 1989 in Tien An Men Square in Beijing. Adriano Màdaro, special correspondent of the "Gazzettino", wrote almost 90 articles for the paper during the month that he lived in close contact with the students protesting in the square against corruption and a lack of democracy. The articles, together with more reflective pieces written after his return from China, are documents of great significance for an understanding of what was taking place in Beijing at that time. His account includes a number of revelations including the fact that the photograph of the young man in a white shirt stopping a tank, which was reproduced all over the world, was not in fact of a "heroic student", but of a person who had nothing at all to do with the protests... The book includes many photographs of the bloody events and of the main characters involved.