Imperial China: 900–1800 is a history book written by Frederick W. Mote, Professor of Chinese History and Civilization, Emeritus, at Princeton University. The book was published in 1999 by Harvard University Press.
Scope As the title suggests, Imperial China covers the 900-year period from the year 900 to 1800. In terms of Chinese history, it covers the period from the fall of the Tang dynasty to the middle of the Qing dynasty, shortly before the beginning of China's Century of Humiliation at the end of the Qing dynasty. It covers the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Liao dynasty, Song dynasty, Western Xia state, Jin dynasty, Yuan dynasty, Ming dynasty and the first 150 years of the Qing dynasty.
Contents The nearly 1,000 pages of text are divided into five parts and are further divided into 36 chapters.
Part One Conquest Dynasties and the Northern Song: 900–1127 1. The Five Dynasties 2. Abaoji 3. Building the Liao Empire 4. Liao Civilization 5. Creating the Song Dynasty 6. The World of Ideas in Northern Song China 7. Dimensions of Northern Song Life 8. Origins of the Xi Xia State
Part Two Conquest Dynasties and the Southern Song: 1127–1279 9. The "Wild Jurchens" Erupt into History 10. The Jurchen State and Its Cultural Policy 11. The Later Xi Xia State 12. Trends of Change under Jin Alien Rule 13. The Southern Song and Chinese Survival 14. Chinese Civilization and the Song Achievement 15. Southern Song Life – A Broader View 16. A Mid-Thirteenth-Century Overview
Part Three China and the Mongol World 17. The Career of the Great Khan Chinggis 18. Forging the Mongol World Empire 19. Khubilai Khan Becomes Emperor of China 20. China under Mongol Rule
Part Four The Restoration of Native Rule Under the Ming 21. From Chaos toward a New Chinese Order 22. Zhu Yuanzhang Builds His Ming Dynasty 23. Civil War and Usurpation 24. The "Second Founding" of the Ming Dynasty 25. Ming China in the Fifteenth century 26. The Changing World of the Sixteenth century 27. Ming China's Borders 28. Late Ming Political Decline, 1567–1627 29. The Lively Society of the Late Ming 30. The Course of Ming Failure
Part Five China and the World in Early Qing Times 31. Alien Rule Returns 32. The Kangxi Emperor: Coming of Age 33. The Kangxi Reign: The Emperor and His Empire 34. The Yongzheng Emperor as Man and Ruler 35. Splendor and Degeneration, 1736–1799 36. China's Legacy in a Changing World
Reception Reviewers generally considered the book comprehensive. Lucian Pye's review for Foreign Affairs characterized it as "history on a grand scale but with intimate details", lauding it for making "vivid the full dimensions of China's greatest centuries." Denis Sinor, writing for The Historian, felt that the book's coverage of fine arts was lacking but nevertheless praised the way it used political history as a backdrop for many other subjects, such as economics and religious philosophy, and wrote that Mote "deserves our gratitude for assembling, to our benefit, this vast material."
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