This highly readable history of the world's most populous country dates from the late nineteenth century, when its author, John Henry Gray, served as the Archdeacon of Hong Kong. His two-volume study, here bound into a single volume, begins with the earliest known legends of China as the "Middle Kingdom," around which all lesser states gathered like satellites, and ranges forward to an intriguing series of portraits of the author's Chinese contemporaries.Subjects include the functio...