China's Response to the West: A Documentary Survey, 1839-1923, with a New Preface

by John King Fairbank and John K. Teng, Ssu-Yu, & Fairbank

Book Overview

The present confrontation of Communist China and the United States, on which the future of peace in Asia hinges, is merely the latest phase in a continuing historical process--the remaking of China's ancient society under the stimulus of Western contact. How does it happen that a century of foreign trade and missionary evangelism, of modern education and the training of Chinese students in Western ways, has now resulted in a seeming rejection of...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674120256
• ISBN13: 9780674120259
• Release Date: December 1979
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Researchers Beware

Great book. However I was surprised to find that there are very useful footnote markers, yet no footnotes or endnotes. If you want to view the sources, then you must purchase the Researcher's Guide to "China's Response to the West". Otherwise great book to give insight into the actual issues and debates of this crucial period of Chinese history, and central issues in the Chinese debate of how to deal with the Western Challenge.

The best history book I've ever read

If you want to understand how China could fall from being the worlds most powerful nation to a third rate power in the 1930's this is the book.It just provides the documents, you can do your own analysis. Read official correspondence from the forbidden city to the Queen of England, letters between ministers demonstrating just how poorly the Chinese understood the importance of technology and industrialization.This book is enlightening.