[历史学]History of China 英文版.pdf

History of China: Table of Contents?Historical Setting ?The Ancient Dynasties ?Dawn of History ?Zhou Period ?Hundred Schools of Thought ?The Imperial Era ?First Imperial Period ?Era of Disunity ?Restoration of Empire ?Mongolian Interlude ?Chinese Regain Power ?Rise of the Manchus ?Emergence Of Modern China ?Western Powers Arrive First Modern Period ?Opium War, 1839-42 Era of Disunity ?Taiping Rebellion, 1851-64 ?Self-Strengthening Movement ?Hundred Days' Reform and Aftermath ?Republican Revolution of 1911 ?Republican China ?Nationalism and Communism ?Opposing the Warlords ?Consolidation under the Guomindang ?Rise of the Communists ?Anti-Japanese War ?Return to Civil War ?People's Republic Of China ?Transition to Socialism, 1953-57 ?Great Leap Forward, 1958-60 ?Readjustment and Recovery, 1961-65 ?Cultural Revolution Decade, 1966-76 ?Militant Phase, 1966-68 ?Ninth National Party Congress to the Demise of Lin Biao, 1969-71 ?End of the Era of Mao Zedong, 1972-76 ?Post-Mao Period, 1976-78 ?China and the Four Modernizations, 1979-82 ?Reforms, 1980-88 Historical SettingThe History Of China, as documented in ancient writings, dates back some 3,300 years. Modern archaeological studies provide evidence of still more ancient origins in a culture that flourished between 2500 and 2000 B.C. in what is now central China and the lower Huang He ( orYellow River) Valley of north China. Centuries of migration, amalgamation, and development brought about a distinctive system of writing, philosophy, art, and political organization that came to be recognizable as Chinese civilization. What makes the civilization unique in world history is its continuity through over 4,000 years to the present century. The Chinese have developed a strong sense of their real and mythological origins and have kept voluminous records since very early times. It is largely as a result of these records that knowledge concerning the ancient past, not only of China but also of its neighbors, has survived. Chinese history, until the twentieth century, was written mostly by members of the ruling scholar-official class and was meant to provide the ruler with precedents to guide or justify his policies. These accounts focused on dynastic politics and colorful court histories and included developments among the commoners only as backdrops. The historians described a Chinese political pattern of dynasties, one following another in a cycle of ascent, achievement, decay, and rebirth under a new family. Of the consistent traits identified by independent historians, a salient one has been the capacity of the Chinese to absorb the people of surrounding areas into their own civilization. Their success can be attributed to the superiority of their ideographic written language, their technology, and their political institutions; the refinement of their artistic and intellectual creativity; and the sheer weight of their numbers. The process of assimilation continued over the centuries through conquest and colonization until what is now known as China Proper was brought under unified rule. The Chinese also left an enduring mark on people beyond their borders, especially the Koreans, Japanese, and Vietnamese. Another recurrent historical theme has been the unceasing struggle of the sedentary Chinese against the threat posed to their safety and way of life by non-Chinese peoples on the margins of their territory in the north, northeast, and northwest. In the thirteenth century, the Mongols from thenorthern steppes became the first alien people to conquer all China. Although not as culturally developed as the Chinese, they left some imprint on Chinese civilization while heightening Chinese perceptions of threat from the north. China came under alien rule for the second time in the mid-seventeenth century; the conquerors--the Manchus--came again from the north and northeast. For centuries virtually all the foreigners that Chinese rulers saw came from the less developed societies along their land borders. This circumstance conditioned the Chinese view of the outside world. The Chinese saw their domain as the self-sufficient center of the universe and derived from this image the traditional (and still used) Chinese name for their country--Zhongguo () , literally, Middle Kingdom or Central Nation. China saw itself surrounded on all sides by so-called barbarian peoples whose cultures were demonstrably inferior by Chinese standards. This China-centered (“sinocentric“) view of the world was still undisturbed in the nineteenth century, at the time of the first serious confrontation with the West. China had taken it for granted that its relations with Europeans would be conducted according to the tributary system that had evolved over the centuries between the emperor and representatives of the lesser states on China's borders as well as between the emperor and some earlier European visitors. But 。