The Troubled Empire - 9780674046023

"A broad and well-written overview of Chinese history from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. Brook uses stories and anecdotes to illuminate historical trends with grace and skill. For those interested in Chinese history, and for comparative historians, this is a very useful book."---Peter Ditmanson, University of Oxford

The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han Mark Edward Lewis

"This opening volume by Lewis...foretells that the series will become the new gold standard."---Charles W. Hayford, Library Journal

China between Empires: the Northern And Southern Dynasties Mark Edward Lewis

"Arguably the first single-volume comprehensive treatment for general readers of Chinese history between A.D. 220 and 589. It is a remarkable achievement."---Lothar Von Falkenhausen, University of California, Los Angeles

China's Cosmopolitan Empire: The Tang Dynasty Mark Edward Lewis

"An impressive survey history of the Tang dynasty, concise and accessible."---David L. Mcmullen, University of Cambridge

The Age of Confucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China Dieter Kuhn

"For readers who want an in-depth look at mid-imperial Chinese history and culture, Age of Confucian Rule promises to become the book of choice."---Paul Jakov Smith, Haverford College

China's Last Empire: The Great Quing William T. Rowe

"In a fine, well-written study, Rowe brings the latest scholarship in Qing history to a wide audience and makes an important contribution to our understanding of Chinese history."---R. Kent Guy, University of Washington

The Mongol takeover in the 1270S changed the course of Chinese history. The Confucian empire---a millennium and a half in the making---was suddenly thrust under foreign occupation. What China had been before its reunification as the Yuan dynasty in 1279 was no longer what it would be in the future. Four centuries later, another wave of steppe invaders would replace the Ming dynasty with yet another foreign occupation. The Troubled Empire explores what happened to China between these two dramatic invasions.

If anything defined the complex dynamics of this period, it was changes in the weather. Asia, like Europe, experienced a Little Ice Age, and as temperatures fell in the thirteenth century, Kublai Khan moved south into China. His Yuan dynasty collapsed in less than a century, but Mongol values lived on in Ming institutions. A second blast of cold in the 1630s, combined with drought, was more than the dynasty could stand, and the Ming fell to Manchu invaders.

Against this background---the first coherent ecological history of China in this period---Brook explores the growth of autocracy, social complexity, and commercialization, paying special attention to China's incorporation into the larger South China Sea economy. These changes not only shaped what China would become but contributed to the formation of the early modern world.