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 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...

For two generations scholars and general readers have looked to John King Fairbank's The United States and China for knowledge and insights about China. In this fourth edition, enlarged, he includes a new preface and an epilogue that brings the book up to date through the events of 1982. He has also updated the vast bibliography and both indexes. This book stands almost alone as a history of China, an analysis of Chinese society, and an account of Sino-American relations, all in brief compass. The older portions of the book still sparkle, and they have been refined by the latest...