This fourth edition incorporates the crucial social and economic changes that have taken place in China over the last decade, including a detailed account of China's integration into world finacial markets.

Donated by John M. McCaffrey.

1. The land and the people of China -- 2. Origins and early history -- 3. The formative period -- Zhou dynasty : 1027-221 B.C. -- 4. Religion and philosophy -- 5. Unification and expansion -- Qin dynasty : 221-206 B.C. -- Han dynasty : 206 B.C.-A.D. 221 -- 6. Outsiders, generals, and eccentrics -- The six dynasties period : A.D. 222- 589 -- 7. The flowering of Chinese civilization -- Sui dynasty : 589-618 -- Tang dynasty : 618-907 -- 8. The Chinese enter on their modern times -- Five dynasties : 907-960, North China -- Ten kingdoms : 907-970, South China -- Song dynasty : 960-1126 -- Jin dynasty (Jurchen) : 1126-1234, North China -- Southern Song dynasty : 1127-1279, South China -- 9. The Mongol interruption -- Yuan dynasty : 1280-1368 -- 10. The restoration and consolidation of Chinese rule -- Ming dynasty : 1368-1644 -- 11. The Manzhou : summit and decline of the empire -- Qing dynasty : 1644-1911 -- 12. The impact of the West in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries -- 13. The republican revolution 1900-1949 -- 14. The communist revolution 1949-1965 -- 15. The cultural revolution and its aftermath 1966-1978 -- 16. Deng Xiaoping and the reform era 1978-1992 -- 17. The party, greater China, and the wider world 1993-2003 -- 18. A changing society -- Chronology.