http://bactra.org/notebooks Cosma's Notebooks en http://bactra.org/notebooks/2009/09/22#chinese-history <ul>Recommended: <li>Derek Bodde, <cite>Chinese Thought, Society and Science: The Intellectual and Social Background of Science and Technology in Pre-Modern China</cite> [I can't figure out what a lot of these essays have to do with science or technology, but they make for a fascinating ramble around many aspects of pre-modern Chinese culture and society.] <li>Mark Elvin, <cite>The Pattern of the Chinese Past</cite> [Review will be finished Any Lifetime Now, Dammit] <li>Joseph R. Levenson, <cite>Confucian China and Its Modern Fate</cite> <ul> <li>I: <cite>The Problem of Intellectual Continuity</cite> <li>II: <cite>The Problem of Monarchical Decay</cite> <li>III: <cite>The Problem of Historical Significance</cite> </ul> <li>Susan Naquin, <cite>Millenarian Rebellion in China: the Eight Trigrams Uprising of 1813</cite> <li><a href="needham.html">Joseph Needham</a>, <cite>Science and Civilisation in China</cite> <li>Kenneth Pomeranz, <cite>The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy</cite> [<a href="../reviews/great-divergence/">Review: King Cotton and King Coal Raise the West</a>] <li>Jonathan Spence <ul> <li><cite>The Gate of Heavenly Peace</cite> <li><cite>God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan</cite> [<a href="../reviews/gods-chinese-son/">Review</a>] <li><cite>Mao Zedong</cite> <li><cite>The Search for Modern China</cite> <li><cite>Treason by the Book</cite> </ul> <li>Wen Fong (ed.), <cite>The Great Bronze Age of China</cite> </ul> <ul>To Read: <li>Herrlee Glessner Creel, <cite>The Birth of China: A Study of the Formative Period of Chinese Civilization</cite> [Now-antiquated but then-pathbreaking book on the Shang excavations] <li>Mark C. Elliott, <cite>The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China</cite> <li>Mark Elvin, <cite>The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China</cite> [<a href="http://www.yale.edu/yup/books/101112.htm">Blurb</a>] <li>Joseph W. Esherick, <cite>The Origins of the Boxer Uprising</cite> [<a href="http://www-ucpress.berkeley.edu/books/pages/2101.html">Blurb</a>] <li>Joseph W. Esherick and Mary Backus Rankin (eds.), <cite>Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance</cite> [<a href="http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft0q2n99mz">Online</a>] <li>Hsiao-Tung Fei, <cite>China's Gentry: Essays in Rural-Urban Relations</cite> <li>Hill Gates, <cite>China's Motor: A Thousand Years of Petty Capitalism</cite> <li>Jacques Gernet, <cite>A History of Chinese Civilization</cite> <li>David Graff, <cite>Medieval Chinese Warfare, 300--900</cite> ["connects military affairs with political and social developments to show how China's history was shaped by war. The first survey of medieval Chinese military history to be published in English"] <li>Francois Jullien, <cite>The Propensity of Things: Toward a History of Efficacy in China</cite> <li>Louise Levanthes, <cite>When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405--1433</cite> <li>Henri Maspero, <cite>China in Antiquity</citE> <li>Ichisada Miyazaki, <cite>China's Examination Hell: The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China</cite> <li>Mote, <cite>Imperial China, 900--1900</cite> <li>Sachiko Murata, William C. Chittick and Tu Weiming, <cite>The Sage Learning of Liu Zhi: Islamic Thought in Confucian Terms</cite> [<a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/MURSAG.html">blurb</a>] <li>Edward L. Shaughnessy, <cite>Before Confucius: Studies in the Creation of the Chinese Classics</cite> <li>Leo K. Shin, <cite>The Making of the Chinese State: Ethnicity and Expansion on the Ming Borderlands</cite> [<a href="http://www.cambridge.org/0521853540">Blurb</a>] <li>Spence <ul> <li><cite>Chinese Roundabout: Essays in History and Culture</cite> <li><cite>The Death of Woman Wang</cite> <li><cite>Emperor of China : Self-Portrait of K'ang-Hsi</cite> <li><cite>The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci</cite> <li><cite>The Question of Hu</cite> </ul> <li>R. Bin Wong, <cite>China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience</cite> <li>Pei-yu Wu, <cite>The Confucian's Progress: Autobiographical Writings in Traditional China</cite> <li>Angela Zito, <citE>Of Body and Brush: Grand Sacrifice as Text/Performance in Eighteenth-Century China</cite> </ul>