This compelling text explores the development of China through its art, religion, literature, and thought as well as through its economic, political, and social history. This author team combines strong research with extensive classroom teaching experience to offer a clear, consistent, and highly readable text that is accessible to students with no previous knowledge of the history of China.

Table of Contents:
I. The Classical Civilization of China 1. "China" in Antiquity The Neolithic Age The Origins of Chinese Writing The Rise of the Bronze Age The Shang The Western Zhou Dynasty The Odes 2. Turbulent Times and Classical Thought The Spring and Autumn Period The Warring States Period "The Hundred Schools" Confucius Mozi Mencius Xunzi Laozi and Zhuangzi Han Feizi 3. The Early Imperial Period I. The Qin Sources and Historiographical Problems Reappraisals II. The Han The Formative Years The Quality of Han Rule The Xiongnu and Other Neighboring Peoples Intellectual Movements Poetry Gender Changes in Political Economy during the Han period The Fall of the Han II. China in a Buddhist Age 4. China During the Period of Disunity The Fundamentals of Buddhism A World in Disarray China Divided The Northern Wei (386-534) Buddhism in the North Daoism--The Religion The South Poetry Calligraphy Painting Buddhism in the South China on the Eve of Unification 5. The Cosmopolitan Civilization of the Sui and Tang: 581-907 The Sui (581-617) The Tang: Establishment snd Consolidation Gaozong and Empress Wu High Tang City Life in the Capital: Chang'an The Flourishing of Buddhism Daoism The Rebellion of An Lushan (755-763) Li Bai and Du Fu Late Tang Late Tang Poetry and Culture Collapse of the Dynasty III. Late Imperial/Early Modern 6. China During the Song: 960-1279 The Founding A New Elite The Examination System The Northern Song Government and Politics Wang Anshi The Economy The Religious Scene The Confucian Revival Poetry and Painting The Southern Song (1127-1279) Southern Song Cities and Commerce Literary and Visual Arts "Neo-Confucianism" Values and Gender The End 7. The Mongol Empire and the Yuan Dynasty Chinggis Khan: Founding of the Mongol Empire China under the Mongols: The Early Years (1211-1260) Khubilai Khan and the Early Yuan The Yuan continued, 1294-1355 The Economy Society Religion Cultural and Intellectual Life "Northern" Drama Painting Rebellions and Disintegration 8. The Ming Dynasty 1368-1644 The Early Ming (1368-1424) Maritime Expeditions (1405-1433) The Early Middle Period (1425-1505) The Later Middle Period (1506-1590) Economy and Society Literacy and Literature The Novel Drama Painting Ming Thought: Wang Yangming Religion Ming Thought after Wang Yangming Dong Qichang and Late Ming Painting Late Ming Government (1590-1644) 9. East Asia and Modern Europe: First Encounters The Portuguese in East Asia The Jesuits in Japan The Impact of Other Europeans The "Closing" of Japan The Jesuits in China The Rites Controversy The Decline of Christianity in China Trade with the West and the Canton System 10. The Qing Dynasty The Founding of the Qing Early Qing Painters and Thinkers The Reign of Kangxi Yongzheng Qianlong Eighteenth Century Governance Eighteenth-Century Literati Culture Fiction A Buoyant Economy Social Change Ecology Dynastic Decline IV. China in the Modern World 11. China: Internal Crises and Western Intrusion I. The Opium War and Taiping Rebellion The Opium War (1839-1841) and Its Causes The Treaty of Nanjing and the Treaty System Internal Crisis The Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) Zeng Guofan and the Defeat of the Taiping China and the World from the Treaty of Nanjing to the End of the Taiping II. 1870-1894 The Post-Taiping Revival Self-Strengthening--The First Phase Self-Strengthening--The Theory The Empress Dowager and the Government Education Economic Self-Strengthening The Traditional Economic Sector Missionary Efforts and Christian Influences Old and New Wine in Old Bottles III. Foreign Relations Continued Pressures Vietnam and the Sino-French War of 1884-1885 Korea and the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 The Treaty of Shimonoseki (April 1895) 12. China: Endings and Beginnings, 1895-1927 I. The Last Years of the Last Dynasty The New Reformers The Scramble for Concessions The Boxer Rising Winds of Change Stirrings of Protest and Revolution Eleventh-Hour Reform The Revolution of 1911 II. From Yuan Shikai to Chiang Kai-shek Yuan Shikai The Warlord Era Intellectual Ferment Intellectual Alternatives Cultural Alternatives Marxism in China: The Early Years The GMD and Sun Yat-sen (1913-1923) GMD and C.C.P. Cooperation (1923-1927) The Break Establishment of the Nationalist Government V. Building a New China 13. China Under the Nationalists The Nanjing Decade The Nanjing Decade--Domestic Policies The Chinese Communists, 1927-1934 The Long March United Front and War Expansion of the War into a Pacific War The Course of the War China at War Japan at War The End of World War II Taiwan Civil War and Communist Triumph, 1946-1949 14. China Under Mao I. Consolidation and Construction Soviet Style, 1949-1958 Government and Politics Foreign Relations and the Korean War Economic Policies Thought Reform and Intellectuals II. The Revolution Continued, 1958-1976 The Great Leap Forward The Sino-Soviet Split Domestic Politics, 1961-1965 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: The Radical Phase, 1966-1969 The Winding Down, 1969-1976 15. The Chinese World Since Mao Deng Xiaoping and the Four Modernizations The Four Cardinal Principles Intellectual Life and the Arts in the 1980s Tiananmen State, Economy, and Society in the 1990s and into the New Century The Environment The Revival of Religion Foreign Relations and Hong Kong Intellectuals and Artists in the 1990s and into the New Century Taiwan Afterword International Tensions Economic Globalization Contending Trends Cultural Globalization