'The following year Qin unified all under Heaven and the title of August Emperor was immediately adopted.' The short-lived Qin dynasty unified China in 221 BC and created an imperial legacy that lasted until 1911. The extraordinary story of the First Emperor, founder of the dynasty, is told in the Historical Records of Sima Qian, the Grand Historiographer and the most famous Chinese historian. He describes the Emperor's birth and the assassination attempt on his l...

'The following year Qin unified all under Heaven and the title of August Emperor was immediately adopted.' The short-lived Qin dynasty unified China in 221 BC and created an imperial legacy that lasted until 1911. The extraordinary story of the First Emperor, founder of the dynasty, is told in the Historical Records of Sima Qian, the Grand Historiographer and the most famous Chinese historian. He describes the Emperor's birth and the assassination attempt on his l...

China's Silent Army is a revealing and gripping piece of investigative journalism into the unknown extent of China's global power, from China-based reporters Juan Pablo Cardenal and Heriberto AraújoThis book stems from the remarkable, determined work of these two China-based journalists who, frustrated by the facile, pro-business commentary of so much writing on China and the evasions of Beijing's official pronouncements, took a drastic decision: to see fo...

"A historical classic" that brings Mao Tse-tung, the Long March, and the Chinese revolution to vivid life ( Foreign Affairs).Journalist Edgar Snow was the first Westerner to meet Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Communist leaders in 1936—and out of his up-close experience came this historical account, one of the most important books about the remarkable events that would shape not only the future of Asia, but also the future of the world.This edition o...

China is now poised to take a key role on the world stage, but in the early twentieth century the situation could not have been more different. Rana Mitter goes back to this pivotal moment in Chinese history to uncover the origins of the painful transition from a premodern past into a modern world. Mitter takes us through the resulting social turmoil and political promise, the devastating war against Japan in the 1940s, Communism and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, and the new era of...

The first HMS Iron Duke was a British Audacious-class central battery ironclad. She became the flagship of the China Station on 31 August 1871, one of the first large ships to use the Suez canal to reach the Far Easy. In an age of inefficient engines, her full sailing rig made her particularly suitable for operations in the Pacific Ocean. She returned to the UK in 1875 and joined the First Reserve Squadron.The China Station, established in 1865, had as its area of responsibility th...

In contrast to the economic and cultural dominance by the south and the east coast over the past several centuries, influence in China in the early Middle Ages was centered in the north and featured a significantly multicultural society. Many events that were profoundly formative for the future of East Asian civilization occurred during this period, although much of this multiculturalism has long been obscured due to the Confucian monopoly of written records. Multicultural China in the...

RUINS OF DESERT CATHAY (Published 1912)PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF EXPLORATIONS IN CENTRAL ASIA AND WESTERNMOST CHINA IN 1912 BY M. AUREL STEIN.WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS, COLOUR PLATES, PANORAMAS, AND MAPS FROM ORIGINAL SURVEYS IN TWO VOLUMES - VOL. 1This is the complete and unabridged version and includes every image that appears in the original printed version. This is NOT a scanned copy with unreadable, missing or jumbled text, but, other than ...

In the first half of the twentieth century, China moved from a millennium of imperial rule to the Communist Party-led People’s Republic of China which remains today. China in Transformation argues that this enormously significant period in Chinese history saw wrenching change throughout Chinese society amounting to a social, cultural and political transformation. This new, fully revised and updated edition takes full advantage of new research and formerly unavailable material to analyse th...

What can the history of technology contribute to our understanding of late imperial China? Most stories about technology in pre-modern China follow a well-worn plot: in about 1400 after an early ferment of creativity that made it the most technologically sophisticated civilisation in the world, China entered an era of technical lethargy and decline. But how are we to reconcile this tale, which portrays China in the Ming and Qing dynasties as a dying giant that had outgrown its own strength...

Terracotta Warriors provides an intriguing, original and up-to-date account of one of the wonders of the ancient world. Illustrated with a wealth of original photographs, this is the first book available for the general reader. In one of the most astounding archaeological discoveries of all time, the Terracotta Warriors were discovered by chance by farmers in 1974. We now understand that the excavated pits containing nearly eight thousand warriors and hundreds of horses are only p...

When people experience a traumatic event, such as war or the threat of annihilation, they often turn to history for stories that promise a positive outcome to their suffering. During World War II, the French took comfort in the story of Joan of Arc and her heroic efforts to rid France of foreign occupation. To bring the Joan narrative more into line with current circumstances, however, popular retellings modified the original story so that what people believed took place in the past was of...