China

A New History

Enlarged Edition

John King Fairbank

Merle Goldman

    Preface to the Enlarged Edition

    Preface to the Original Edition

    Introduction: Approaches to Understanding China's History

    The Variety of Historical Perspectives

    Geography: The Contrast of North and South

    Humankind in Nature

    The Village: Family and Lineage

    Inner Asia and China: The Steppe and the Sown

    PART ONE

    Rise and Decline of the Imperial Autocracy

    1. Origins: The Discoveries of Archaeology

    Paleolithic China

    Neolithic China

    Excavation of Shang and Xia

    The Rise of Central Authority

    Western Zhou

    Implications of the New Archaeological Record

    2. The First Unification: Imperial Confucianism

    The Utility of Dynasties

    Princes and Philosophers

    The Confucian Code

    Daoism

    Unification by Qin

    Consolidation and Expansion under the Han

    Imperial Confucianism

    Correlative Cosmology

    Emperor and Scholars

    3. Reunification in the Buddhist Age

    Disunion

    The Buddhist Teaching

    Sui-Tang Reunification

    Buddhism and the State

    Decline of the Tang Dynasty

    Social Change: The Tang-Song Transition

    4. China's Greatest Age: Northern and Southern Song

    Efflorescence of Material Growth

    Education and the Examination System

    The Creation of Neo-Confucianism

    Formation of Gentry Society

    5. The Paradox of Song China and Inner Asia

    The Symbiosis of Wen and Wu

    The Rise of Non-Chinese Rule over China

    China in the Mongol Empire

    Interpreting the Song Era

    6. Government in the Ming Dynasty

    Legacies of the Hongwu Emperor

    Fiscal Problems

    China Turns Inward

    Factional Politics

    7. The Qing Success Story

    The Manchu Conquest

    Institutional Adaptation

    The Jesuit Interlude

    Growth of Qing Control in Inner Asia

    The Attempted Integration of Polity and Culture

    PART TWO

    Late Imperial China, 1600-1911

    8. The Paradox of Growth without Development

    The Rise in Population

    Diminishing Returns of Farm Labor

    The Subjection of Women

    Domestic Trade and Commercial Organization

    Merchant-Official Symbiosis

    Limitations of the Law

    9. Frontier Unrest and the Opening of China

    The Weakness of State Leadership

    The White Lotus Rebellion, 1796-1804

    Maritime China: Origins of the Overseas Chinese

    European Trading Companies and the Canton Trade

    Rebellion on the Turkestan Frontier, 1826-1835

    Opium and the Struggle for a New Order at Guangzhou, 1834-1842

    Inauguration of the Treaty Century after 1842

  • Cover: China
  • A photo of the author

John King Fairbank was Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History and Director of the East Asian Research Center at Harvard University.

Merle Goldman is Professor of History, Emerita, at Boston University and Associate of the John K. Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University.