The Search for Modern China

Jonathan D. Spence (1936—2021) was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, where he taught for more than forty years. He was awarded MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. The Search for Modern China won the Lionel Gelber Award and the Kiriyama Book Prize.

Part I: Conquest and Consolidation
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

Part II: Fragmentation and Reform
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

Part III: Envisioning State and Society
12. The New Republic
13. “A Road is Made”
14. The Fractured Alliance
15. The Guomindang in Power
16. Communist Survival

Part IV: War and Revolution
17. World War II
18. The Fall of the Guomindang State
19. The Birth of the People’s Republic
20. Planning the New Society
21. Deepening the Revolution
22. Cultural Revolution

Part V: Re-entering the World
23. Reopening the Doors
24. Redefining Revolution
25. Levels of Power
26. Testing the Limits
27. Century’s End
28. Breakthrough (new chapter to this edition)