R. Keith Schoppa's introduction to Modern Chinese
History contains in some 150 pages a chronological historical narrative
from 1780 to the present. It provides a comprehensive overview of domestic
politics, society, the economy, the world of culture and thought and foreign
relations. The second part of the book, some 60 pages, is a compendium of 250
short, descriptive articles divided into eleven sections spanning from events
and movements to institutions and organizations, emperors, terms and treaties,
Qing dynasty government leaders, leaders of dissent, rebellion and revolution,
Nationalist and Communist party leaders to military figures and intellectuals,
writers and artists. The third part of Modern Chinese History, about 45
pages, is a resource guide with some 500 annotated entries for sources for
further research in English, 61 general works and some 430 more specific
books, as well as descriptions of important films depicting modern China and,
unfortunately only on one page, a list of Internet resources. Part IV, ca. 70
pages, contains appendices such as a chronology of key events from 1780 to the
present, documents (e.g. the Boxer protocol of 1901 or the decision of the
Central Committee of the CCP concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution of 1966) and tables and figures on trends and developments (such as
demographics, trade, urban residents' income and living expenses in 1995).
A 35-page index concludes the volume.
According to R. Keith Schoppa, "At the
heart of modern Chinese history have been the efforts of the Chinese people to
transform the traditional polity into a modern nation-state, the Confucian
orthodoxy into an ideology that could help shape the process, and an agrarian
economy into an industrial one. The result has been the largest revolution in
world history in terms both of the radicalism of the changes and of the number
of people affected." In the early 19th century, the Western colonial
powers (as well as Japan) reduced China into a semicolony. "China's
struggle to emerge from Western-imposed humiliation continues, from the
Chinese perspective, until the present." The Columbia Guide to Modern
Chinese History tries to offer a look beneath the surface and is specially
suited for students and other readers who need basic information in a
condensed form as well as orientation on further reading. A useful instrument,
only the hardcover's price is not well-suited for students pockets.
R. Keith Schoppa holds the Doehler Chair in
Asian History at Loyola College. He is the author of Blood Road: The
Mystery of Shen Dingyi in Revolutionary China, Xiang Lake: Nine
Centuries of Chinese life and Chinese Elites and Political Change.
R. Keith Schoppa: The Columbia Guide to Modern Chinese History (Columbia Guides to Asian History).
Hardcover, Columbia University Press, July 2000, 320 p. Get
it from Amazon.com