History of Imperial China

In 221 BC the First Emperor of Qin unified what would become the heart of a Chinese empire whose major features would endure for two millennia. In the first of a six-volume series on the history of imperial China, Lewis highlights the key challenges facing court officials and scholars who set about governing an empire of such scale and diversity.

After the collapse of the Han dynasty in the third century CE, China divided along a north–south line. This book traces the changes that both underlay and resulted from this split in a period that saw the geographic redefinition of China, more engagement with the outside world, significant changes to family life, developments in the literary and social arenas, and the introduction of new religions.

The Tang dynasty is often called China’s “golden age.” Mark Lewis captures a dynamic era in which the empire reached its greatest geographical extent under Chinese rule, painting and ceramic arts flourished, women played a major role both as rulers and in the economy, and China produced its finest lyric poets in Wang Wei, Li Bo, and Du Fu.

Just over a thousand years ago, the Song dynasty emerged as the most advanced civilization on earth. Within two centuries, China was home to nearly half of all humankind. This book is an essential introduction to this transformative era.

The Troubled Empire explores what happened to China in the four centuries after the Mongol takeover of the 1270s: the growth of autocracy, social complexity, and commercialization, and China’s incorporation into the larger South China Sea economy.

In a brisk revisionist history, William T. Rowe challenges the standard narrative of Qing China as a decadent, inward-looking state that failed to keep pace with the modern West. This original, thought-provoking history of China’s last empire is a must-read for understanding the challenges facing China today.