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China's imperial dynasties : 1600 BC-AD 1912 / Jonathan Fenby.

by Fenby, Jonathan.

New York : Metro Books, 2008, c2007.

China -- History.

China -- Kings and rulers.

9780760794616 (hbk.) :

255 p. : col. ill. ; 29 cm.

Introduction -- The birth of China to 221 BC -- The first emperor and the Qin dynasty 221-207 BC -- The western Han 206 BC to AD 9 -- Wang Mang AD 9-23 -- The eastern Han AD 25-220 -- Period of disunion 220-581 -- The Sui 581-618 -- Tang dynasty: the founders 618-49 -- The era of Wu Zetian 649-705 -- The later Tang 705-908 -- Five dynasties and ten kingdoms 907-60 -- The northern Song 960-1126 -- The southern Song 1127-1279 -- The Yuan 1279-1368 -- The early Ming 1368-1464 -- The later Ming 1465-1644 -- The early and high Qing 1644-1799 -- The decline of the Qing 1799-1874 -- The empire ends 1874-1912.

From the 17th century BC--when the Shang rulers of the eastern valley of the Yellow River assumed power in the cradle of Chinese civilization--until 1911, when imperial China collapsed in revolutionary chaos, the country was ruled by a succession of powerful dynasties. In China's Imperial Dynasties: 1600 BC-AD 1912, Jonathan Fenby tells their rich, complex and often turbulent story. China's imperial dynasties display a recurring pattern of birth, growth, prosperity and collapse due to external pressures. A number of powerful emperors left a particularly strong imprint on China's troubled history, whether as conquerors, consolidators, tyrants, reformers or reactionaries. At the heart of Jonathan Fenby's fascinating and informative narrative are vivid profiles of such emperors as the Qin emperor Shi Huangdi, who began the construction of the Great Wall; Wudi, the Han emperor who developed China as a centralized Confucian state; Kublai Khan, the first emperor of the Mongol Yuan dynasty; the Ming emperor Yongle, a brilliant general who raised his dynasty to its military peak; and the dowager empress Cixi, who rose from humble origins as the daughter of an ordinary Manchu family to rule over all China. Interweaved among these stories of the rise and fall of emperors and dynasties are special features exploring key themes in Chinese history: from Buddhism to the Boxer Rising, from Confucianism to concubines, from the civil service to the Silk Road, from funerary customs to the Forbidden City, from gunpowder to the Great Wall, and from porcelain to printing.--From publisher description.

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