18th Century China and the World (Introduction Volume)

Author: Dai Yi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1999-06-01
Features: The 18th century was a pivotal era for the world, marked by unprecedented transformations, and the study of this century's history has long attracted significant attention from scholars worldwide. For China, the 18th century holds equal special importance. Over these 100 years, the national population doubled, crossing the 300 million mark for the first time; new American crops like sweet potatoes and corn were widely introduced into the interior. Driven by the development of foreign trade, billions of foreign silver coins flowed into China. During this century, traditional economy, culture, and academia all reached new heights, giving rise to one of the most prosperous periods in ancient Chinese history—the "Kang-Qian Prosperity." The book is divided into nine volumes, aiming to provide a panoramic account of 18th-century Chinese history while comparing China with other countries in comparable aspects, grounded in an international perspective. Thus, it differs from the usual national and period-specific histories, featuring a macroscopic and comprehensive historical analysis of China during this era, categorized into fields such as politics, military affairs, frontier ethnic relations, economy, peasants, society, ideology and culture, and foreign relations.