Best Chinese History Books

"The Story of the Stone" (c. 1760) is one of the greatest novels of Chinese literature. The first part of the story, The Golden Days, begins the tale of Bao-yu, a gentle young boy who prefers girls to Confucian studies, and his two cousins: Bao-chai, his parents' choice of a wife for him, and the ethereal beauty Dai-yu. Through the changing fortune...

Through a series of lively and absorbing portraits of iconic modern Chinese leaders and thinkers, two of today’s foremost specialists on China provide a panoramic narrative of this country’s rise to preeminence that is at once analytical and personal. How did a nation, after a long and painful period of dynastic decline, intellectual upheaval, fore...

Available in one or two volumes, this accessible, yet rigorous, introduction to the political, social, and cultural history of China provides a balanced and thoughtful account of the development of Chinese civilization from its beginnings to the present day.Each volume includes ample illustrations, a full complement of maps, a chronological table, ...

From one of China's most acclaimed writers: a unique, intimate look at the Chinese experience over the last several decades.Framed by ten phrases common in the Chinese vernacular, China in Ten Words uses personal stories and astute analysis to reveal as never before the world's most populous yet oft-misunderstood nation. In "Disparity," for example...

Lu Xun (1881—1936) is one of the founding figures of modern Chinese literature. His celebrated short stories assemble a powerfully unsettling portrait of the superstition, poverty, and complacence that he perceived in late-imperial China, and in the revolutionary Republic that toppled the last dynasty in 1911. This volume presents Lu Xun's complete...

The most authoritative life of the Chinese leader ever written, Mao: The Unknown Story is based on a decade of research, and on interviews with many of Mao's close circle in China who have never talked before -- and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him. It is full of startling revelations, exploding the myth o...

An authoritative account of five thousand years of Chinese history Many nations define themselves in terms of territory or people; China defines itself in terms of history. Taking into account the country's unrivaled, voluminous tradition of history writing, John Keay has composed a vital and illuminating overview of the nation's complex and vivid ...

Who founded China? Are Chinese people religious? What is Chinese culture and how has it changed over time? The accessible and fun Understanding China Through Comics series answers those questions and more.For all ages, Foundations of Chinese Civilization covers China's early history in comic form, introducing philosophies like Confucianism and Daoi...

More populous than any other country on earth, China also occupies a unique place in our modern world for the continuity of its history and culture. In this sumptuously illustrated single-volume history, now in its second edition, noted historian Patricia Buckley Ebrey traces the origins of Chinese culture from prehistoric times to the present. She...