Cambridge History of the Republic of China (1912-1949) (Volume 2)

Author: John K. Fairbank
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1994-01-01
Features: Cambridge History of Republican China (Volume II) is the translation of Volume 13 of the Cambridge History of China. To preserve the original form, no revisions have been made. Readers are encouraged to judge the views and material selections independently. Some place names in the maps of the original book differ from those used at the time, and some content also does not align with the actual situation then. We have not made any changes to these aspects. For the Chinese materials cited in the book, we have strived to locate the original texts. For those that could not be found, we back-translated from English and removed the quotation marks. The content of this book: Words are rigid and vague tools for dividing and analyzing the past. No matter how carefully they are refined, the characteristics of modern Chinese history cannot be described in a few words. The overused term "revolution" is sometimes less useful than "recovery." As for "modern reforms," their meaning is merely "changes that span the modern period," which still leaves us unclear about what "period" it refers to. However, the 28 authors of this book, from the 10th to the 13th volumes, each provide an overview of the events and trends in China from 1800 to 1949 in a way that avoids oversimplification. It is undoubtedly the primary duty of historians to make broader generalizations based on narrower ones, but most authors of these four volumes would agree with the following perspective,