| Preface to the Second Edition | |
| Preface to the First Edition | |
| Contents According to Topics | |
| A Note on the Selection and Translation of Sources | |
| Map of China | |
| The Classical Period | p. 1 |
| Late Shang Divination Records. The questions and answers inscribed on oracle bones used to communicate with divine powers | p. 3 |
| The Metal Bound Box. A scene in which the Duke of Zhou offers his life to the ancestors in place of his nephew the king, from the Book of Documents | p. 6 |
| Hexagrams in the Book of Changes. Two passages from an ancient diviners' manual | p. 8 |
| Songs and Poems. Songs of courtship, feasting, and war, from the Book of Songs | p. 11 |
| The Battle Between Jin and Chu. Description of the strategies, jockeying for position, and boasting of a major battle, from the Zuo zhuan | p. 14 |
| Confucian Teachings. Passages from the Analects, Mencius, and Xunzi | p. 17 |
| Daoist Teachings. Passages from the Laozi and Zhuangzi | p. 27 |
| Legalist Teachings. Passages from the Book of Lord Shang and Han Feizi | p. 32 |
| Two Avengers. From the Intrigues of the Warring States | p. 38 |
| Social Rituals. The procedures to be followed when an inferior visits a superior and vice-versa, from the Book of Etiquette and Ritual | p. 42 |
| The Qin and Han Dynasties | p. 47 |
| Penal Servitude in Qin Law. From excavated wooden-strip documents | p. 51 |
| The World Beyond China. From Sima Qian's Historical Records | p. 54 |
| Heaven, Earth, and Man. From the writings of Dong Zhongshu | p. 57 |
| The Debate on Salt and Iron. A court debate between the Legalist prime minister and the Confucian scholars about the role of the government in economic matters | p. 60 |
| The Classic of Filial Piety. A popular primer that glorifies the virtue of filial devotion | p. 64 |
| Wang Fu on Friendship and Getting Ahead. A second-century man's cynical view of how men get ahead | p. 69 |
| Women's Virtues and Vices. An exemplary biography of a model woman, the lament of a man whose wife was far from model, and a woman's admonitions to girls on how to behave | p. 72 |
| Yin and Yang in Medical Theory. The theory behind traditional medicine, from the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine | p. 77 |
| Local Cults. Three stone inscriptions describing shrines erected to honor various deities | p. 80 |
| Uprisings. Accounts of two religious leaders and the uprisings they staged | p. 83 |
| The Era of Division and the Tang Dynasty | p. 87 |
| Ge Hong's Autobiography. By a fourth-century scholar and reluctant official | p. 91 |
| Buddhist Doctrines and Practices. Wei Shou's summary of Buddhist doctrines, hagiographic accounts of two monks, and documents found at Dunhuang showing Buddhist belief in practice | p. 97 |
| Tales of Ghosts and Demons. Three tales from a fourth-century collection | p. 105 |
| Cultural Differences Between the North and the South. Two views of the distinctions that developed during a period of political separation and non-Han domination in the North | p. 109 |
| Emperor Taizong on Effective Government. A summary of political theory, written by the second Tang emperor for his sons | p. 112 |
| The Tang Legal Code. Sections from the laws on theft and robbery and those on land and taxes | p. 116 |
| The Errors of Geomancy. An official's complaints about the profusion of theories | p. 120 |
| The Dancing Horses of Xuanzong's Court. Unusual and exotic entertainment | p. 123 |
| Family Business. Documents from Dunhuang on the sale of slaves, division of property, and household registration | p. 125 |
| The Examination System. Humorous and semihumorous anecdotes about men's efforts to pass the civil service examinations | p. 128 |
| A Pilgrim's Visit to the Five Terraces Mountains. From the diary of a Japanese monk who made a pilgrimage to one of the sacred sites of Buddhism | p. 132 |
| The Song and Yuan Dynasties | p. 137 |
| The Tanguts and Their Relations with the Han Chinese. Some Tangut maxims, a Tangut ruler's letter to the Song emperor, and the preface to a Chinese-Tangut glossary | p. 139 |
| Book of Rewards and Punishments. A moral tract associated with popular Daoism | p. 142 |
| Precepts of the Perfect Truth Daoist Sect. Principles of a Daoist monastic sect | p. 146 |
| Wang Anshi, Sima Guang, and Emperor Shenzong. A court debate between the leading activist and his conservative opponent and letters they wrote each other outlining their differences | p. 151 |
| Rules for the Fan Lineage's Charitable Estate. The rules by which a charitable trust was to be run for the benefit of the members of the lineage | p. 155 |
| Ancestral Rites. From a ritual manual giving the procedures to be followed | p. 157 |
| Women and the Problems They Create. Three folktale-like stories of unusual women and a sympathetic view of women's problems | p. 164 |
| Longing to Recover the North. Poems by six twelfth-century writers expressing their anguish at the loss of China's heartland | p. 169 |
| Zhu Xi's Conversations with His Disciples. Conversations between a leading neo-Confucian philosopher and his students | p. 172 |
| The Attractions of the Capital. A description of economic activity, entertainment, and amenities in the city of Hangzhou | p. 178 |
| The Mutual Responsibility System. One magistrate's instructions on how these units were to operate | p. 186 |
| On Farming. How to plant, weed, care for tools, budget time, and so on | p. 188 |
| A Mongol Governor. The biography of a Mongol who spent decades putting down rebellions and securing Mongol rule | p. 192 |
| A Schedule for Learning. Neo-Confucian rules and advice for teachers and students | p. 195 |
| A Scholar-Painter's Diary. Two weeks of social and intellectual activity | p. 199 |
| The Ming Dynasty | p. 203 |
| Proclamations of the Hongwu Emperor. A despot's complaints about how difficult it was to get his subjects to act properly | p. 205 |
| The Dragon Boat Race. A description of the festival as performed in one place in Hunan | p. 208 |
| Village Ordinances. Sample ordinances a village could adopt | p. 211 |
| Commercial Activities. Sample contracts, an essay on merchants, and a biography of an admired one | p. 213 |
| What the Weaver Said. An artisan's view of his work | p. 221 |
| Tenants. Two contracts specifying the responsibilities of quasi-hereditary tenant-servants on one estate and reports of riots by tenants | p. 223 |
| Shi Jin the Nine-Dragoned. Episode from a novel describing the background of one outlaw | p. 226 |
| Family Instructions. Advice and rules found in a lineage genealogy | p. 238 |
| Concubines. How concubines were bought, the reminiscences of a man for a beloved concubine, and an episode from a novel depicting the ploys of a malicious concubine | p. 245 |
| Widows Loyal Unto Death. Accounts from a local history glorifying women who showed loyalty to their dead husbands by killing themselves | p. 253 |
| Two Philosophers. Letters and conversations of two important thinkers, Wang Yangming and Li Zhi | p. 256 |
| A Censor Accuses a Eunuch. A memorial to the emperor accusing the eunuch Wei Zhongxian of usurping his authority and acting tyrannically | p. 263 |
| The Qing Dynasty | p. 267 |
| The Yangzhou Massacre. One family's experiences, recounted in a diary | p. 271 |
| Proverbs About Heaven. Standard sayings | p. 280 |
| Taxes and Labor Service. A description of the forms in which taxes and service were assessed in one county | p. 282 |
| Permanent Property. The advice a man gave his sons concerning the importance of owning land and how to manage it | p. 287 |
| Lan Dingyuan's Casebook. Two examples of how an energetic Magistrate solved administrative and legal cases | p. 292 |
| Exhortations on Ceremony and Deference. A lecture delivered by an official in the hope of teaching villagers good behavior | p. 297 |
| Village Organization. Two records of village affairs, one about a water-use agreement, the other the creation of a fair | p. 301 |
| The Village Headman and the New Teacher. Episode from a novel about how a teacher was hired | p. 304 |
| Boat People. A local history's account of a minority group | p. 309 |
| Placards Posted in Guangzhou. Official orders to admit foreigners to the city after the Opium War and protests from local residents | p. 311 |
| Infant Protection Society. An account of one man's efforts to stem infanticide | p. 313 |
| Mid-Century Rebels. Confessions, proclamations, petitions, and descriptions of a number of different rebel groups | p. 318 |
| The Conditions and Activities of Workers. A stone inscription recording official disapproval of organizing by workers and an official report of working conditions in a water-logged mine | p. 323 |
| Genealogy Rules. The rules one lineage used in compiling its genealogy | p. 326 |
| The Early Twentieth Century | p. 331 |
| Liang Qichao on His Trip to America. Comments on the amazing sights in New York, and reflections on Chinese social organization | p. 335 |
| Ridding China of Bad Customs. Proposals for ways to end footbinding, suppress opium addiction, and free young girl bondservants | p. 341 |
| Rural Education. Recollections of a teacher introducing science to a rural school | p. 348 |
| My Old Home. A story showing problems of communication between upper and lower class men | p. 354 |
| The Spirit of the May Fourth Movement. Recollections of a woman who had been in middle school at the time | p. 360 |
| The Haifeng Peasant Association. How one man tried to organize peasants | p. 364 |
| The Dog-Meat General. An account of one of the more incompetent and brutal warlords | p. 373 |
| The General Strike. A magazine account of a strike in Shanghai in 1928 | p. 378 |
| Funeral Processions. A description of two funeral processions with a list of the equipment used and the cost | p. 385 |
| My Children. An essay by a man with five children | p. 391 |
| The Life of Beggars. An account of the social organization of beggars and their various techniques of earning a living | p. 396 |
| Generalissimo Jiang on National Identity. Two speeches, early and late in the War Against Japan, on China's relations with other countries and the relations of the various nationalities within China | p. 401 |
| The People's Republic | p. 407 |
| The Communist Party. A speech by Liu Shaoqi on party organization and discipline | p. 411 |
| Land Reform. An episode from a novel showing peasants learning "to stand up" | p. 416 |
| Hu Feng and Mao Zedong. Letters of a leading intellectual which Mao published with his own commentary on how they demonstrated his counterrevolutionary tendencies | p. 422 |
| A New Young Man Arrives at the Organization Department. An episode from a story of the conflict between an idealistic young party member and the entrenched power structure | p. 429 |
| Peng Dehuai's Critique of the Great Leap Forward. Peng's letter to Mao offering measured criticism of his policies | p. 435 |
| Developing Agricultural Production. A newspaper account of efforts to inspire members of a production brigade to work harder | p. 440 |
| Lei Feng, Chairman Mao's Good Fighter. Inspirational anecdotes about a model worker and soldier, devoted to aiding the people | p. 442 |
| Housing in Shanghai. A newspaper article describing the effects of state control of housing | p. 447 |
| Red Guards. Red Guards' accounts of their activities during the Cultural Revolution | p. 449 |
| Victims. A short story written after the fall of the "Gang of Four," showing some of the negative effects on both the older and younger generations of the Cultural Revolution | p. 458 |
| The Changing Course of Courtship. Four documents that show the changing circumstances in which young people have looked for spouses | p. 470 |
| The One-Child Family. One province's regulations for fostering the one-child family and a magazine article on the pressure young mothers have experienced because of this policy | p. 478 |
| Economic Liberalization and New Problems for Women. Newspaper and magazine articles protesting some of the ways new policies have had adverse effects on women's employment or welfare | p. 482 |
| Peasants in the Cities. An interview and a newspaper article concerning the rural residents who flocked to the cities in the 1980s | p. 488 |
| Posters Calling for Democracy. Posters from the 1989 Democracy Protests | p. 496 |
| Defending China's Socialist Democracy. A newspaper article refuting the views of those who believe that the West is more democratic than China | p. 501 |
| Glossary | p. 505 |
| Suggestions for Further Reading | p. 509 |
| Original Sources | p. 515 |
| Index | p. 520 |
| Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved. |
