China: A History

Product Information

In 771 BC, King You and his forces were defeated in the Battle of Mount Li by rebel states and Quanrong barbarians. The rebel aristocrats established a new ruler, King Ping, in Luoyang, [35] :4 beginning the second major phase of the Zhou dynasty: the Eastern Zhou period, which is divided into the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. The former period is named after the famous Spring and Autumn Annals. The decline of central power left a vacuum. The Zhou empire now consisted of hundreds of tiny states, some of them only as large as a walled town and surrounding land. These states began to fight against one another and vie for hegemony. The more powerful states tended to conquer and incorporate the weaker ones, so the number of states declined over time. [36] By the 6th century BC most small states had disappeared by being annexed and just a few large and powerful principalities remained. Some southern states, such as Chu and Wu, claimed independence from the Zhou, who undertook wars against some of them (Wu and Yue). Many new cities were established in this period and society gradually became more urbanized and commercialized. Many famous individuals such as Laozi, Confucius and Sun Tzu lived during this chaotic period. The Zhou dynasty (1046 BC to about 256 BC) is the longest-lasting dynasty in Chinese history, though its power declined steadily over the almost eight centuries of its existence. In the late 2nd millennium BC, the Zhou dynasty arose in the Wei River valley of modern western Shaanxi Province, where they were appointed Western Protectors by the Shang. A coalition led by the ruler of the Zhou, King Wu, defeated the Shang at the Battle of Muye. They took over most of the central and lower Yellow River valley and enfeoffed their relatives and allies in semi-independent states across the region. [32] Several of these states eventually became more powerful than the Zhou kings.

Carroll, J. M. (2007). A Concise History of Hong Kong. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7425-3422-3. . A stupa on top of an arch ( crossing street tower), is a common form of architecture during Yuan period. Urbanization increased as the population grew and as the division of labor grew more complex. Large urban centers, such as Nanjing and Beijing, also contributed to the growth of private industry. In particular, small-scale industries grew up, often specializing in paper, silk, cotton, and porcelain goods. For the most part, however, relatively small urban centers with markets proliferated around the country. Town markets mainly traded food, with some necessary manufactures such as pins or oil. Qiu, Jane (7 January 2014). "Ancient times table hidden in Chinese bamboo strips. The 2,300-year-old matrix is the world's oldest decimal multiplication table". Nature. doi: 10.1038/nature.2014.14482. Archived from the original on 22 January 2014.In the north the last of the Sixteen Kingdoms was extinguished in 439 by the Northern Wei, a kingdom founded by the Xianbei, a nomadic people who unified northern China. The Northern Wei eventually split into the Eastern and Western Wei, which then became the Northern Qi and Northern Zhou. These regimes were dominated by Xianbei or Han Chinese who had married into Xianbei families. During this period most Xianbei people adopted Han surnames, eventually leading to complete assimilation into the Han. In 1556, during the rule of the Jiajing Emperor, the Shaanxi earthquake killed about 830,000 people, the deadliest earthquake of all time. Following the defeat of Japan in 1945, the war between the Nationalist government forces and the CCP resumed, after failed attempts at reconciliation and a negotiated settlement. By 1949, the CCP had established control over most of the country. Odd Arne Westad says the Communists won the Civil War because they made fewer military mistakes than Chiang, and because in his search for a powerful centralized government, Chiang antagonized too many interest groups in China. Furthermore, his party was weakened in the war against the Japanese. Meanwhile, the Communists told different groups, such as peasants, exactly what they wanted to hear, and cloaked themselves in the cover of Chinese Nationalism. [86] During the civil war both the Nationalists and Communists carried out mass atrocities, with millions of non-combatants killed by both sides. [87] These included deaths from forced conscription and massacres. [88] When the Nationalist government forces were defeated by CCP forces in mainland China in 1949, the Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan with its forces, along with Chiang and a large number of their supporters; the Nationalist government had taken effective control of Taiwan at the end of WWII as part of the overall Japanese surrender, when Japanese troops in Taiwan surrendered to the Republic of China troops. [89] Fairbank, John K.; Twitchett, Denis, eds. (1978–2020). The Cambridge History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The prosperity of the early Tang dynasty was abetted by a centralized bureaucracy. The government was organized as " Three Departments and Six Ministries" to separately draft, review, and implement policies. These departments were run by royal family members and landed aristocrats, but as the dynasty wore on, were joined or replaced by scholar officials selected by imperial examinations, setting patterns for later dynasties. The Yuan dynasty was formally proclaimed in 1271, when the Great Khan of Mongol, Kublai Khan, one of the grandsons of Genghis Khan, assumed the additional title of Emperor of China, and considered his inherited part of the Mongol Empire as a Chinese dynasty. In the preceding decades, the Mongols had conquered the Jin dynasty in Northern China, and the Southern Song dynasty fell in 1279 after a protracted and bloody war. The Mongol Yuan dynasty became the first conquest dynasty in Chinese history to rule the entire China proper and its population as an ethnic minority. The dynasty also directly controlled the Mongol heartland and other regions, inheriting the largest share of territory of the eastern Mongol empire, which roughly coincided with the modern area of China and nearby regions in East Asia. Further expansion of the empire was halted after defeats in the invasions of Japan and Vietnam. Following the previous Jin dynasty, the capital of Yuan dynasty was established at Khanbaliq (also known as Dadu, modern-day Beijing). The Grand Canal was reconstructed to connect the remote capital city to economic hubs in southern part of China, setting the precedence and foundation where Beijing would largely remain as the capital of the successive regimes that unified China mainland. Valentino, Benjamin A. (2005). Final solutions: mass killing and genocide in the twentieth century. Cornell University Press. p.88.

Got a question or comment?

a b c Lander, Brian (2021). The King's Harvest: A Political Ecology of China from the First Farmers to the First Empire. Yale University Press. The Editorial Committee of Chinese Civilization: A Source Book, City University of Hong Kong (2007). China: Five Thousand Years of History and Civilization. City University of HK Press. p.25. ISBN 978-9629371401. Wu, Rukang; Lin, Shenglong (June 1983). "Peking Man". Scientific American. 248 (6): 92–93. Bibcode: 1983SciAm.248f..86R. doi: 10.1038/scientificamerican0683-86. JSTOR 24968922. Renowned Chinese author Yu Hua, takes you you on an incredible journey through the complexities and contrasts of China. He does it in just ten different words and concepts commonly found in the Chinese vernacular; People, leader, reading, writing, Lu Xun, revolution, disparity, grassroots, copycat and bamboozle.

Ho, Ping-ti (1970). "An Estimate of the Total Population of Sung-Chin China". Études Song. 1 (1): 33–53. On that note, your last book choice is In the Camps by Darren Byler. Presumably, the book is about what’s been going on in Xinjiang. The Financial Times review says it “evokes the shadow of concentration camps—with the added cruelty of a 21st-century surveillance system.” Tell me what it’s describing and why it’s important to read this book. Further information: History of the Han dynasty Western Han Map showing the expansion of Han dynasty in the 2nd century BC There are also chapters, such as one by Zhang Jishun, that focus on very different kinds of people. Her contribution is a profile of an actress, Shangguan Yunzhu, who was a film star in the late 1940s in Shanghai, where Zhang is based, who later had to be re-educated to become a literary worker in the new China. It talks about the ups and downs of the star’s career and the ways in which she ran afoul of the new government. In the process, it introduces you to the world of film before 1949, and of political struggles after 1949. Xiong, Victor Cunrui; Hammond, Kenneth J. (2019). Routledge Handbook of Imperial Chinese History. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-367-58051-3.The most challenging thing for a book like this is to do justice to both continuities and ruptures. She doesn’t fall into the trap of an ‘unchanging China’ idea. One nice visual touch is that most chapters have a map. It’s a map of what now comes into our mind when we hear the word China, and she shows how much or how little—and it’s often very little—of that physical space was actually controlled by the dynasty in power at the time. That’s a very effective way to keep reminding us to forget the Chinese Communist Party’s effort to get one to think of there being a single geographical space that always was and always will be China, except when bad things happened, and parts got carved away. Byler also takes pains to show that what is happening in China has parallels in other places and global relevance. The technologies that are being developed to control are ones that are, in some cases, being developed in part by international companies and being used in other locales.

The Eastern Han dynasty was one of the most prolific eras of science and technology in ancient China, notably the historic invention of papermaking by Cai Lun, and the numerous scientific and mathematical contributions by the famous polymath Zhang Heng.

Thanks! You’ll receive a Welcome email in a moment.

Until the early 1970s the ROC was recognized as the sole legitimate government of China by the United Nations, the United States and most Western nations, refusing to recognize the PRC on account of the Cold War. This changed in 1971 when the PRC was seated in the United Nations, replacing the ROC. The KMT ruled Taiwan under martial law until 1987, with the stated goal of being vigilant against Communist infiltration and preparing to retake mainland China. Therefore, political dissent was not tolerated during that period. The Ming dynasty intervened deeply in the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–98), which ended with the withdrawal of all invading Japanese forces in Korea, and the restoration of the Joseon dynasty, its traditional ally and tributary state. The regional hegemony of the Ming dynasty was preserved at a toll on its resources. Coincidentally, with Ming's control in Manchuria in decline, the Manchu ( Jurchen) tribes, under their chieftain Nurhaci, broke away from Ming's rule, and emerged as a powerful, unified state, which was later proclaimed as the Qing dynasty. It went on to subdue the much weakened Korea as its tributary, conquered Mongolia, and expanded its territory to the outskirt of the Great Wall. The most elite army of the Ming dynasty was to station at the Shanhai Pass to guard the last stronghold against the Manchus, which weakened its suppression of internal peasants uprisings. The history of China spans several millennia across a wide geographical area. Each region now considered part of the Chinese world has experienced periods of unity, fracture, prosperity, and strife. Chinese civilization first emerged in the Yellow River valley, which along with the Yangtze basin constitutes the geographic core of the Chinese cultural sphere. China maintains a rich diversity of ethnic and linguistic people groups. The traditional lens for viewing Chinese history is the dynastic cycle: imperial dynasties rise and fall, and are ascribed certain achievements. Throughout pervades the narrative that Chinese civilization can be traced as an unbroken thread many thousands of years into the past, making it one of the cradles of civilization. At various times, states representative of a dominant Chinese culture have directly controlled areas stretching as far west as the Tian Shan, the Tarim Basin, and the Himalayas, as far north as the Sayan Mountains, and as far south as the delta of the Red River.