The world's most comprehensive, well documented, and well illustrated book on this subject. With extensive subject and geographical index. 315 photographs and illustrations. Free of charge in digital PDF format.

This study, based on primary sources, deals with the linguistic development and polemical uses of the expression Unequal Treaties, which refers to the treaties China signed between 1842 and 1946. Although this expression has occupied a central position in both Chinese collective memory and Chinese and English historiographies, this is the first book to offer an in-depth examination of China's encounters with the outside world as manifested in the rhetoric surrounding the Unequal Treaties. Author Dong Wang argues that competing forces within China have narrated and renarrated the history of the treaties in an effort to consolidate national unity, international independence, and political legitimacy and authority. In the twentieth century, she shows, China's experience with these treaties helped to determine their use of international law. Of great relevance for students of contemporary China and Chinese history, as well as Chinese international law and politics, this book illuminates how various Chinese political actors have defined and redefined the past using the framework of the Unequal Treaties.

Vol. 34 includes "Special tariff conference issue" Nov. 6, 1925.

This book presents a panoramic history of the Chinese nation spanning the twentieth century, with the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation as its central theme. In their unwavering pursuit of national independence, universal emancipation, and a country of power and shared prosperity, the Chinese people undertook an arduous journey that saw China fundamentally transformed by such historic events and experiences as the overthrow of the imperial system in the 1911 Revolution, the founding of the People’s Republic of China, reform and opening up, and the construction of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Massive in scope, meticulously documented, and rigorously written, this volume has few rivals among general histories of China in the twentieth century.

In Networks beyond Empires, Kuo examines business and nationalist activities of the Chinese bourgeoisie in Hong Kong and Singapore between 1914 and 1941. The book argues that speech-group ties were key to understanding the intertwining relationship between business and nationalism. Organization of transnational businesses and nationalist campaigns overlapped with the boundary of Chinese speech-group networks. Embedded in different political-economic contexts, these networks fostered different responses to the decline of the British power, the expansion of the Japanese empire, as well as the contested state building processes in China. Through negotiating with the imperialist powers and Chinese state-builders, Chinese bourgeoisie overseas contributed to the making of an autonomous space of diasporic nationalism in the Hong Kong-Singapore corridor.

The war-time series for 1939-46, edited by A. J. Toynbee, comprises the following volumes: [v.1] The world in March 1939, edited by A. J. Toynbee and F. T. Ashton-Gwatkin.--[v.2] The Middle East in the war, by G. Kirk.--[v.3] America, Britain & Russia, their co-operation and conflict, 1941-1946, by W. H. McNeill.--[v.4] Hitler's Europe, edited by A. Toynbee and V. M. Toynbee.--[v.5] The Middle East, 1945-1950, by G. Kirk.--[v.6] The realignment of Europe, edited by A. Toynbee and V. M. Toynbee.--[v.7] The Far East, 1942-1946, by F. C. Jones, H. Borton and B. R. Pearn.--[v.8] Four-power control in Germany and Austria, 1945-1946. I. Germany, by M. Balfour. II. Austria, by J. Mair.--[v.9] The war and the neutrals, edited by A. Toynbee and V. M. Toynbee.--[v.10] The eve of war, 1939, edited by A. Toynbee and V. M. Toynbee.--[v.11] The initial triumph of the Axis, edited by A. Toynbee and V. M. Toynbee.

Since the beginning of the Meiji period when Japan evolved into a modern and powerful nation-state, ideas of empire and constitution imbued Japanese rule and progress. In Empire and Constitution in Modern Japan, Junji Banno expertly analyses how these conflicting concepts operated together in Japan from 1868 until 1937. By 'empire', Banno means the Japanese impetus to create its own empire; by 'constitution', he identifies Japanese efforts to create a constitutional government. In this book, Banno discusses the complicated relationship between these two concepts, ranging from incompatibility in some periods to symbiosis in others. Furthermore, understanding the complex and competing nature of these ideals, he persuasively reasons, is key to our understanding of why Japan and China went to war in 1937, leading to Pearl Harbor just four years later. Translated by eminent scholar Arthur Stockwin, Banno's highly accessible account of the dynamics of pre-war Japanese political history provides an engaging survey of imperialism and constitutionalism in modern Japan. It will be of vital importance to all scholars of modern Japanese history.