This is the second of two volumes in this major Cambridge history dealing with the gradual decline of the Ch'ing empire in China (the first was volume 10). Volume 11 surveys the persistence and deterioration of the old order in China during the late nineteenth century, and the profound stirring during that period, which led to China's great twentieth-century revolution. The contributors focus on commercial and technological growth, foreign relations, the stimulation of Chinese intellectual life by the outside world, and military triumphs and disasters. They show that the effects of the...

This is the first of two volumes of this authoritative Cambridge history which review the Republican period, between the demise of imperial China and the establishment of the People's Republic. These years from 1912 to 1949 were marked by civil war, revolution and invasion; but also by change and growth in the economic, social, intellectual and cultural spheres. The chapters examine economic trends in the period and the rise of the new middle class. Intellectual trends are surveyed to show the changes in traditional Chinese values and the foreign influences which played a major role in...

This volume begins the historical coverage of The Cambridge History of China with the establishment of the Ch'in empire in 221 BC and ends with the abdication of the last Han emperor in AD 220. Spanning four centuries, this period witnessed major evolutionary changes in almost every aspect of China's development, being particularly notable for the emergence and growth of a centralized administration and imperial government. Leading historians from Asia, Europe, and America have contributed chapters that convey a realistic impression of significant political, economic, intellectual, religious,...

This volume deals with four non-Chinese regimes: the Khitan dynasty of Liao; the Tangut state of Hsi Hsia; the Jurchen empire of Chin; and the Mongolian Yuan dynasty that eventually engulfed the whole of China. It investigates the historical background from which these regimes emerged and shows how each in its own way set up viable institutions for the control of a multi-racial, multi-lingual, and multi-cultural population. It discusses these problems not just as a long negative episode in China's history, but shows the ingenuity and adaptability of these states, and their success in...

This volume in the authoritative Cambridge History of China is devoted to the history of the Ming dynasty, with some account of the three decades before the dynasty's formal establishment, and of the Ming Courts, which survived in South China for a generation after 1644. Volume 7 deals primarily with political developments of the period, but it also incorporates background in social, economic, and cultural history where this is relevant to the course of events. The Ming period is the only segment of later imperial history during which all of China proper was ruled by a native, or Han dynasty....

This volume of The Cambridge History of China considers the political, military, social, and economic developments of the Ch'ing empire to 1800. The period begins with the end of the resurgent Ming dynasty, covered in Volumes 7 and 8, and ends with the beginning of the collapse of the imperial system in the nineteenth century, described in Volume 10. Ten chapters elucidate the complexities of the dynamic interactions between emperors and their servitors, Manchus and non-Manchu populations, various elite groups, competing regional interests, merchant networks and agricultural producers, and...

This is the first of the two final volumes of The Cambridge History of China, which describe the efforts of the People's Republic of China to grapple with the problems of adaptation to modern times. Volume 14 deals with the achievements of the economic and human disasters of the new regime's first sixteen years (1949 65). Part I chronicles the attempt to adapt the Soviet model of development to China, and Part II covers the subsequent efforts of China's leaders to find native solutions that would provide more rapid and appropriate answers to China's problems. Each of the two parts of the...

Volume 15 of The Cambridge History of China is the second of two volumes dealing with the People's Republic of China since its birth in 1949. The harbingers of the Cultural Revolution were analyzed in Volume 14. Volume 15 traces a course of events still only partially understood by most Chinese. It begins by analyzing the development of Mao's thought since the Communist seizure of power, in an effort to understand why he launched the movement. The contributors grapple with the conflict of evidence between what was said favorably about the Cultural Revolution at the time and the often...

The Cambridge History of China is one of the most far-reaching works of international scholarship ever undertaken, exploring the main developments in political, social, economic and intellectual life from the Ch'in empire to the present day. The contributors are specialists from the international community of sinological scholars. Many of the accounts break new ground; all are based on fresh research. The works are written not only with students and scholars but also with the general reader in mind. No knowledge of Chinese is assumed, though for readers of Chinese, proper and other names are...

This is the second of two volumes of this authoritative history which review the Republican period from 1912 to 1949.