The best books on the Qing dynasty

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The Song dynasty (960–1279) has been characterized by its pre-eminent civil culture and military weakness. This groundbreaking work demonstrates that the civil dominance of the eleventh century was the product of a half-century of continuous warfare and ruthless political infighting. The spectacular culture of the eleventh century, one of the high points in Chinese history, was built on the bloody foundation of the conquests of the tenth century. Peter Lorge examines how, rather than a planned and inevitable reunification of the Chinese empire, the foundation of the Song was an uncertain undertaking, dependent upon highly contingent battles, both military and political, whose outcome was always in doubt. The Song dynasty's successful waging of war led ultimately to peace.

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The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 reversed the Asian balance of power, yielding the unprecedented outcome of Japan not China on top, an outcome China has been striving to reverse ever since. Although this war, not the Opium Wars, constitutes the divide between China’s traditional and modern eras, it remains virtually ignored in Western literature. Not so in the East, where this reversal in the traditional power balance fractured the previous international harmony within the Confucian world and left an aftershock of enduring territorial and political fault lines that continue to embroil China, Japan, Korea, Russia, and Taiwan.

As the tectonic plates shift back to China on top, it is worth understanding what happened during the last time of portentous seismic changes.

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China is poised to become the world’s largest economy in the next decade. But its great struggle to modernise has been one of tragedy, conflict, and challenge. From the first attempts to introduce Western ideas into the country two centuries ago, China’s long march to global primacy has been above all an epic fight to renew an ancient country and culture.

Sinologist Kerry Brown traces this quest for renewal through the major moments of China’s modern history. Taking the reader on a journey that includes war, revolution, famine, and finally regeneration, he describes concisely and authoritatively where China has come from, and where it is heading as it achieves great power status. This is a story that is no longer just about China, but concerns the rest of the world.

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Sources in Chinese History serves as an introduction to a sweeping array of key events, personages, and policies from the founding of China’s last dynasty in 1644 to the present. Now in its second edition, each chapter opens with an annotated visual source followed by a historical snapshot of a key event from that period. By highlighting social and cultural dimensions of China’s past, the sourcebook challenges the reader to consider the shifting perspectives, economic challenges, and political ideologies of each era. Special attention has been made to incorporate non-traditional documents, such as film scripts, private correspondence, and political cartoons.

From the founding of China’s last dynasty to Xi Jinping’s leadership today, this book suits those seeking more information about a specific person or era, as well as those looking for a more thorough introduction to China’s recent or more distant past.

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A literary memoir like no other, Monk of Park Avenue recounts novelist and martial master Monk Yon Rou’s spiritual journey of self-discovery. Learn from Yon Rou as he tackles tragedy and redemption on an unforgettable soul-searching odyssey.

A spiritual journey with extraordinary encounters. Yon Rou’s memoir is a kaleidoscopic ride through the upper echelons of New York Society and the nature-worshipping, sword-wielding world of East Asian religious and martial arts. Monk of Park Avenue divulges a privileged childhood in Manhattan, followed by the bitter rigors of kung fu in China and meditations in Daoist temples. Join Yon Rou’s adventure as he encounters kings, Nobel laureates, and the Mob. Witness this martial master’s incarceration in a high-mountain Ecuadorian hellhole and fight for survival in Paraguay’s brutal thorn jungle.

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Oh, no, another book about the Tiananmen Incident? Inconvenient Memories is a rare and truthful memoir of a young woman's coming of age amid the Tiananmen Square Protests. In 1989, Anna Wang was one of the lucky few who worked for a Japanese company, Canon. She traveled each day between her grandmother's dilapidated commune-style apartment and an extravagant office just steps from Tiananmen Square. Her daily commute on Beijing's impossibly crowded buses brought into view the full spectrum of China's inequalities during the economic transition. When Tiananmen Protests broke out, her Japanese boss was concerned whether the protests would obstruct Canon's assembly plant in China, and she was sent to Tiananmen Square on a daily basis to take photos for her boss to analyze for evidence of turning tides. From her perspective as a member of the emerging middle class, she observed firsthand that Tiananmen Protests stemmed from Chinese people's longing for political freedom and their fear for the nascent market economy, an observation that readers have never come across from the various accounts of the historical events so far.

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Unsavory Elements is an unprecedented anthology of 28 original, true stories from some of the most celebrated foreign authors who have lived in modern China. Edited by Tom Carter, whose unfortunate contribution – a ribald tale of a boys’ night out to a house of ill repute – blights this critically acclaimed rogues gallery of Western expat writers. Unsavory Elements falls under the genre of travel writing, yet travel is just the beginning of the adventure here.

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The novel, set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai during WWII, tells an impossible love story between a wealthy Chinese woman, Aiyi Shao, and a penniless German Jew who fled to Shanghai from Nazi Germany, Ernest Reismann. When Aiyi, a woman from a well-bred family in Shanghai, hired Ernest to play the piano in her nightclub, the two forge an unbreakable bond that transcends race, class, and war. The novel reveals a little-known segment of history, the Jewish ghetto in Shanghai, and the resilience of both Chinese and Jewish people during WWII.

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Bianca Tate stands to inherit her family’s thriving pottery business, and she fully expects to keep running, too, without any man’s interference or help—until a penniless rogue turns up and starts charming his way into her company, her family, and her heart.

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By the turn of the twentieth century, China was undergoing acute political, social, and cultural change. So, question: how did the Chinese people stop believing in an emperor who claimed the Mandate of Heaven and decide to replace the empire with a republic? After years of looking at individual thinkers, activists, writers, and political movements, I tried to put the story together, with all its ups and downs, from the first glimpses of a political community that would function without a sacred leader to the final ignominious expulsion of the emperor from the Forbidden City a full twelve years after the founding of the Republic. Also important to me: the story of the rejection of kings is not limited to China.