Now in a fully updated edition, this accessible text provides a balanced history of modern China in a global context. Through years of living and research in China, Taiwan, Japan, and Russia, the authors are deeply qualified to understand China's internal dynamics as well as its foreign relations over centuries. Arguing that modern Chinese history cannot be understood without a deep appreciation of the outside factors that have influenced the country, the authors focus on China's near neighbors, especially Japan and Russia. They also emphasize the tragic role of almost endless warfare throughout Chinese history. Providing a unique comparative approach, the authors bridge the cultural divide separating Chinese history from Western readers trying to understand it. Specifically geared to the teaching requirements of the semester system, the book is divided into four parts and a total of twenty-eight chapters, corresponding either to two chapters per week in a fourteen-week semester or one chapter per week in a two-semester course.

Bruce A. Elleman is William V. Pratt Professor of International History, U.S. Naval War College. He is the author of many books, including Diplomacy and Deception: The Secret History of Sino-Soviet Diplomatic Relations, 19171927; Modern Chinese Warfare, 17951989; Wilson and China: A Revised History of the Shandong Question; Moscow and the Emergence of Communist Power in China, 192530: The Nanchang Uprising and the Birth of the Red Army; High Sea's Buffer: The Taiwan Patrol Force, 19501979; Taiwan Straits: Crisis in Asia and the Role of the U.S. Navy; International Competition in China, 18991991: The Rise, Fall, and Restoration of the Open Door Policy; and China's Naval Operations in the South China Sea: Evaluating Legal, Strategic and Military Factors.

S. C. M. Paine is William S. Sims Professor of History and Grand Strategy in the Strategy and Policy Department, U.S. Naval War College. She is the author of Imperial Rivals: China, Russia and TheirDisputed Frontiers, winner of the Jelavich Book Prize; The Sino-Japanese War of 18941895: Perceptions, Power and Primacy; The Wars for Asia, 1911-1949, winner of the Leopold Prize + PROSE Award for European & World History; and The Japanese Empire: Grand Strategy from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War.