Year of the Earth Serpent Changing Colors. A Novel. An Anti-Marco Polo Voyage to Cathay

"Hall Gardner has given us a timely and compelling narrative of two civilizations as the world witnesses rising Chinese power. A magnificent achievement." - Matthew Fraser, author of In Truth: A History of Lies from Ancient Rome to Modern America
Hall Gardner’s wonderful Year of the Earth Serpent Changing Colors offers an extraordinary illustration of the dynamics of humiliation and delivers a lesson the world would needs to learn. Research shows that humiliation is the most intense human emotion — it leads to the mobilisation of more processing power and a greater consumption of mental resources than any other emotion. Victims of humiliation never forget. Humiliators, on the other hand, are often oblivious of their deeds or they justify them (even while being silently consumed by their own deeds from inside). Therefore, humiliators are often shocked when confronted with the consequences of their deeds, be it revenge coming their way or attempts of peace making. Evelin Lindner, Dr. med., Dr. psychol., founding president of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies and co-founder of the World Dignity University initiative
Hall Gardner's Year of the Earth Serpent Changing Colors is an engrossing and inventive contribution to what might be called the literature of human understanding. One of the book's messages, that, "individuals and governments rarely think about the fact that the very manner and means in which one seeks to change the world— and the very colors that one chooses— could actually make things turn for the worse" is needed, in this, an age of great power rivalry, now more than ever.----James W. Carden, Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy.
How much do we know about China? Year of the Earth Serpent Changing Colors is filled with the history, politics, religion and culture of this nation. Gardner's book is a balance between an encyclopedia and a novel... A big country demands a big book. E. Ethelbert Miller Writer and literary activist Host of On The Margin (WPFW 89.3 FM) Winner Howard Zinn Life Achievement Award 2022