7.3 Yamantaka-Vajrabhairava with imperial portraits, ca. 1330–1332, silk and metallic thread tapestry (kesi), 967/8” (245.5) × 82¼” (209 cm). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1992. Acc. no.: 1992.54 © 2013. Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence
7.4 Khubilai gives the Polo brothers a golden passport. Image from Le livre du Grand Caan, France, after 1333, Royal 19” D. I, f.59 v. © British Library Board/Robana 230
8.1 Tian Tan, the Temple of Heaven, one of the grandiose structures built by Yongle in Beijing. © eye35.pix/Alamy
8.2 Jar, porcelain painted in underglaze blue, H. 19” (48.3 cm), Diam. 19” (48.3 cm). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of Robert E. Tod, 1937. Inv. 37.191.1. © 2013. Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/ Scala, Florence
8.3 Humble Administrators Garden, Suzhou, Jiangsu province, China. © Henry Westheim Photography/Alamy
8.4 Dong Qichang (1555–1636), Reminiscence of Jian River, ca. 1621, hanging scroll, ink and color on paper, without mounting: 495/16 × 189/16” (125.3 × 47.1 cm); with mounting: 102 × 249/16” (259.1 × 62.4 cm). New Haven (CT), Yale University Art Gallery. Leonard C. Hanna, Jr., B.A. 1913, Mrs. Paul Moore, and Anonymous Oriental Purchase Funds. Acc. no.: 1982.19.2. © 2013. Yale University Art Gallery/Art Resource, NY/Scala, Florence
9.1 Plate, eighteenth century (ca. 1715–1720), hard-paste porcelain, Gr. H. 13/8 (3.5 cm), Diam. 91/8 (23.2 cm). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Lucile and Robert H. Gries Charity Fund, 1970. Acc. no.: 1970.220.1. © 2013. Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence
10.1 Empress dowager Ci Xi. © Mary Evans Picture Library/ Alamy
10.2 Too Many Shylocks, 1901, color litho, Pughe, John S. (1870–1909). Private Collection/© Look and Learn/The Bridgeman Art Library
10.3 A group of Chinese Boxers. Artist: Ogden’s Guinea Gold Cigarettes. London, The Print Collector. © 2013. Photo: The Print Collector/Heritage-Images/Scala, Florence
11.1 Sun Yat-sen in 1912. Photo: akg-images/Interfoto
11.2 Chiang Kai-shek. © Bettmann/CORBIS
11.3 Invading Japanese forces moving into Nanjing, 1937. © Bettmann/CORBIS
11.4 Mao Zedong (left) and Zhou Enlai (right) in Yan’an in northwest China, 1945. Photo: akg-images
12.1 A dam built with little mechanical equipment in the Great Leap Forward era. Photo: Keystone-France/ Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
12.2 Chinese Red Guards publicly parade their victims, wearing dunce caps and signs proclaiming their crimes, through the streets of Beijing. Mao’s Cultural Revolution of the 1960s unleashed radicalized youth against so-called antirevolutionary groups. 1970. Courtesy Everett Collection/ Rex Features
12.3 Nixon in China. President Nixon meets with China’s Communist Party leader Mao Zedong. 21 February 1972. © Everett Collection Historical/Alamy
12.4 June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square riot. The June Fourth movement, or the 1989 Movement for Democracy, consisted of a series of demonstrations led by labor activists, students, and intellectuals between 15 April and 4 June 1989. © Durand-Langevin/Sygma/Corbis
LIST OF MAPS
2.1 Warring States-era divisions
3.1 Western (or Former) Han Dynasty
4.1 The Three Kingdoms
5.1 Silk and sea routes in traditional times
6.1 Song dynasty and its neighbors, ca. 1005
6.2 Jin dynasty and its neighbors, ca. 1127
7.1 Mongol Empire, 1279
8.1 Ming China
9.1 Qing dynasty, ca. 1760
11.1 China after Japanese attack, 1938
12.1 China, 2020
A NOTE ON ROMANIZATION
I studied the Chinese language when the Wade-Giles system of Romanization was standard. Around 1980, books and articles about China started to use the pinyin system, although a few stayed with Wade-Giles. I am not entirely satisfied with the pinyin scheme, but I have used it for the convenience of the reader because nearly all publications he or she will encounter will employ it.
I have eschewed diacritical marks, with the exception of the umlaut, for all Arabic, Iranian, and Turkic terms and names.
I have adopted Antoine Mostaert’s scheme for the transliteration of Mongolian, as modified by Francis W. Cleaves, except for these deviations:
č is ch
γ is gh
ĵ is j
q is kh
š is sh
Chinese place their surnames first and their personal names after their surnames.
[1] EARLY HISTORY, TO 1027 BCE
Land and Settlement
Early Mankind
Agricultural Revolution in the Neolithic Era
Xia: The First Dynasty?
The Shang and the Origins of Chinese Civilization
Oracle Bones
Ritual Objects as Historical Sources
Shang Society
LAND AND SETTLEMENT
Along with Russia and the USA, China is one of the world’s largest countries, stretching about three thousand miles from the east coast to its boundaries to the west in central Asia, the Himalayan states, and Vietnam. This vast domain embraces the tropical island of Hainan and the subarctic areas of Manchuria. Its landscape of plains, deserts, and lofty mountains has created various kinds of economies, based upon the environment. There are multiple Chinas, depending on the topography and the inhabitants’ differing responses to the lands in which they reside. Two-thirds of the land consists of mountains or other demanding terrain, with limited or almost no opportunities for transport, precluding the development of agriculture. However, the melting snows from the mountains provide water and, in modern times, hydroelectric power. The Tibetan plateau (Tibet and Qinghai province) has the most daunting mountains. The lands east of the mountains are China’s agricultural heartland.
Within the traditional boundaries of China, the north and south regions differ. The Qinling Mountains and the Yangzi River divide the country. Flowing from Tibet to north China and then to the original core of Chinese civilization in Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, the Yellow River (or Huang He) is vital to the northern economy. Loess soil blowing from Inner Mongolia into these provinces and Gansu province permits sedentary agriculture. The yellowish soil builds up with silt and mud in the Yellow River and necessitates the construction