A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations

This compelling text explores the development of China and Japan through their art, religion, literature, and thought as well as through their economic, political, and social history. The author team combines strong research with extensive classroom teaching experience to offer a clear, consistent, and highly readable text that is accessible to students with no previous knowledge of the history of East Asia.

PART I: THE CLASSICAL CIVILIZATION OF CHINA. 1. "China" in Antiquity. 2. Turbulent Times and Classical Thought. 3. The Early Imperial Period. PART II: CHINA AND JAPAN IN A BUDDHIST AGE. 4. China during the Period of Disunity. 5. The Cosmopolitan Civilization of the Sui and Tang: 584-907. 6. Early Japan to 794. 7. Heian Japan. PART III: A NEW AND CRUCIAL PHASE. 8. China during the Song: 960-1279. 9. The Mongol Empire and the Yuan Dynasty. 10. The Ming Dynasty: 1368-1644. 11. The Kamakura Period in Japan. 12. Muromachi Japan. 13. East Asia and Modern Europe: First Encounters. PART IV: LAST DYNASTIES 14. Tokugawa: Background, Establishment, and Middle Years. 15. The Qing Dynasty. Part V: China and Japan in the Modern World. 16. China: The Troubled Nineteenth Century. 17. Japan: Endings and Beginnings: From Tokugawa to Meiji, 1787-1873. 18. The Emergence of Modern Japan: 1874-1894. 19. China: Endings and Beginnings, 1894-1927. 20. Imperial Japan: 1895-1931. 21. The 1930s and World War II. PART VI: EAST ASIA SINCE WORLD WAR II. 22. The Aftermath of the War and Unfinished Business. 23. China under Mao. 24. The Chinese World since Mao. 25. The New Japan.