Includes bibliographical references (p. 749-788) and index.

The late Ming. The glory of the Ming ; Town and farm ; Corruption and hardship ; The Ming collapse -- The Manchu conquest. The rise of the Qing ; Conquering the Ming ; Adapting to China ; Class and resistance -- Kangxi's consolidation. The war of the Three Feudatories, 1673-1681 ; Taiwan and maritime China ; Wooing the intellectuals ; Defining the borders ; A mixed legacy -- Yongzheng's authority. Qing power and taxation in the countryside ; The center and channels of power ; Moral authority -- Chinese society and the reign of Qianlong. Social pressures and population growth ; "Like the sun at midday" ; Eighteenth-century Confucianism ; The dream of the Red Chamber ; Qianlong's later years -- China and the eighteenth-century world. Managing the foreigners ; Aliens and Chinese law ; Opium ; Western images of China -- The first clash with the West. The response of China's scholars ; China's political response ; Britain's military response ; The new treaty system -- The crisis within. Social dislocation north and south ; The Taiping ; Foreign pressures and Marx's views ; The Nian rebellion ; Muslim revolts -- Restoration through reform. Confucian reform ; Defining foreign policy ; The missionary presence ; Overseas Chinese -- New tensions in the late Qing. Self-strengthening and the Japanese war ; The reform movement of 1898 ; Three sides of nationalism ; Emerging forces -- The end of the dynasty. The Qing constitution ; New railways, new army ; Nationalists and socialists ; Qing fall -- The new republic. Experiment in democracy ; The rule of Yuan Shikai ; Militarists in China and Chinese in France ; The political thinking of Sun Yat-Sen -- "A road Is made". The warning voice of social Darwinism ; The promise of Marxism ; The facets of May Fourth ; The Comintern and the birth of the CCP ; The industrial sector -- The clash. The initial alliance ; Launching the Northern Expedition ; Shanghai spring ; Wuhan summer, Canton winter -- Experiments in government. The power base of Chiang Kai-Shek ; Mao Zedong and the rural Soviets ; China and the United States ; China and Japan ; China and Germany -- The drift to war. The Long March ; The national mood and Guomindang ideology ; Crisis at Xi'an ; The Chinese poor -- World War II. The loss of East China ; China divided ; Chongqing and Yan'an, 1938-1941 ; Chongqing and Yan'an in the widening war ; War's end -- The fall of the Guomindang state. The Japanese surrender and the Marshall mission ; Land reform and the Manchurian base ; The losing battle with inflation ; Defeat of the Guomindang armies -- The birth of the People's Republic. Countryside and town, 1949-1950 ; The structure of the new government ; The Korean War ; Mass party, mass campaigns -- Planning the new society. The first five-year plan ; Foreign policy and the national minorities ; Army reform ; The hundred flowers -- Deepening the revolution. The great leap forward ; The Sino-Soviet rift ; Political investigation and "socialist education" ; The cult of Mao and the critics ; Launching the Cultural Revolution ; Party retrenchment and the death of Lin Biao -- Reopening the doors. The United States and the Nixon visit ; Attacking Confucius and Lin Biao ; Defining the economy, 1974-1975 ; 1976 : the Old Guard dies -- Redefining revolution. The four modernizations ; The fifth modernization ;- Taiwan and the Special Economic Zones ; "Truth from facts" -- Levels of power. One billion people ; Governing China in the 1980s ; The problems of prosperity, 1983-1984 ; Rebuilding the law -- Testing the limits. Emerging tensions in 1985 ; Democracy's chorus ; Broadening the base ; Social strains ; The breaking point.

This work chronicles the history of China for over four hundred years through the spring of 1989.