*Note: Section openers have been cut for the Fourth Edition.  

1. The Late Ming 

2. The Manchu Conquest 

3. Kangxi’s Consolidation 

4. Yongzheng’s Authority 

5. Chinese Society and the Reign of Qianlong 

6. China and the Eighteenth-Century World 

7. The First Clash with the West 

8. The Crisis Within 

9. Restoration through Reform 

10. New Tensions in the Late Qing 

11. The End of the Dynasty 

12. The New Republic 

13. “A Road Is Made” 

14. The Fractured Alliance 

15. The Guomindang in Power 

16. Communist Survival 

17. World War II 

18. The Civil War, 1945–1949 

19. The Birth of the People’s Republic 

20. Planning the New Society 

21. Deepening the Revolution 

22. Cultural Revolution 

23. Reopening the Doors 

24. Redefining Revolution 

25. Levels of Power 

26. Testing the Limits 

27. Century’s End 

28. Breakthrough?  

Appendixes