The history of Genghis Khan and Ögödei Khan is given in the Chinese rendition of the Mongolian historical literary narrative, Yuanchao bishi, which is known in the West through several translations, such as The Secret History of the Mongols, trans. and ed. by Francis Woodman Cleaves (1982); and The Secret History of the Mongols, adapted by Paul Kahn, expanded ed. (1998). The Mongol operations against China are described in Igor de Rachewiltz, “Personnel and Personalities in North China in the Early Mongol Period,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 9:88–144 (1966).
The sociopolitical history of the later Yuan is described in John W. Dardess, Conquerors and Confucians: Aspects of Political Change in Late Yüan China (1973); Franz Schurman (ed. and trans.), Economic Structure of the Yüan Dynasty (1956, reissued 1967); Herbert Franke, From Tribal Chieftain to Universal Emperor and God: The Legitimation of the Yüan Dynasty (1978); Ch’i-ch’ing Hsiao, The Military Establishment of the Yüan Dynasty (1978); Paul Heng-chao Ch’en, Chinese Legal Tradition Under the Mongols: The Code of 1291 as Reconstructed (1979); and John D. Langlois, Jr. (ed.), China Under Mongol Rule (1981).
Religious and intellectual life of the period is the subject of Arthur Waley (trans.), The Travels of an Alchemist (1931, reprinted 1963), on the Daoist monk Changchun; Frederick W. Mote, “Confucian Eremitism in the Yüan period,” in Arthur F. Wright (ed.), The Confucian Persuasion (1960); Wm. Theodore De Bary, Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind-and-Heart (1981); and Hok-lam Chan and Wm. Theodore De Bary (eds.), Yüan Thought: Chinese Thought and Religion Under the Mongols (1982).
Works on Yuan culture include Sherman E. Lee and Wai-kam Ho, Chinese Art Under the Mongols: The Yüan Dynasty, 1279–1368 (1968); James Cahill, Hills Beyond a River: Chinese Painting of the Yüan Dynasty, 1279–1368 (1976); and J.I. Crump, Chinese Theater in the Days of Khublai Khan (1980, reprinted 1990).
Chinese contacts with Asia and the West are discussed in Leonard Olschki, Marco Polo’s Asia: An Introduction to His “Description of the World” called “Il Milione” (1960; originally published in Italian, 1957); and Igor de Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans (1971). Benjamin Elman
Ming dynasty
Useful reference guides include Edward L. Farmer, Romeyn Taylor, and Ann Waltner (eds.), Ming History: An Introductory Guide to Research (1994); Wolfgang Franke, An Introduction to the Sources of Ming History (1968); and L. Carrington Goodrich and Chao-ying Fang (eds.), Dictionary of Ming Biography, 2 vol. (1976). Reviews and articles regularly appear in the journal Ming Studies (semiannual).
The early Ming years are described in Edward L. Dreyer, Early Ming China: A Political History, 1355–1435 (1982); and Charles O. Hucker, The Ming Dynasty: Its Origins and Evolving Institutions (1978). Additional light is shed on early Ming life, thought, and institutions in Edward L. Farmer, Early Ming Government: The Evolution of Dual Capitals (1976); Frederick W. Mote, The Poet Kao Ch’i (1962); and John W. Dardess, Confucianism and Autocracy: Professional Elites in the Founding of the Ming Dynasty (1983). Early Ming overseas expeditions and foreign relations are dealt with in Edward L. Dreyer, Zheng He: China and the Oceans in the Early Ming Dynasty, 1405–1433 (2007); J.J.L. Duyvendak, China’s Discovery of Africa (1949); and Yi-t’ung Wang, Official Relations Between China and Japan, 1368–1549 (1953).
Specialized studies of mature Ming include Leo K. Shin, The Making of the Chinese State: Ethnicity and Expansion on the Ming Borderlands (2006); Charles O. Hucker, The Traditional Chinese State in Ming Times (1961), and The Censorial System of Ming China (1966); Charles O. Hucker (ed.), Chinese Government in Ming Times: Seven Studies (1969); Ray Huang, Taxation and Governmental Finance in Sixteenth-Century Ming China (1974); Kwan-wai So, Japanese Piracy in Ming China During the 16th Century (1975); Ping-ti Ho, Studies on the Population of China, 1368–1953 (1959, reprinted 1967), and The Ladder of Success in Imperial China: Aspects of Social Mobility, 1368–1911 (1962, reprinted 1976); and Ayao Hoshi, The Ming Tribute Grain System, trans. from the Chinese by Mark Elvin (1969). Ray Huang, 1587, a Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline (1981), is a wide-ranging critical discussion of Ming governance and the ruling class; a somewhat more approving view of Ming China of the same period is China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matthew Ricci, 1583–1610, trans. from the Latin by Louis J. Gallagher (1953). Modern studies of China’s contacts with Europeans in Ming times notably include Charles R. Boxer (ed. and trans.), South China in the Sixteenth Century (1953, reissued 2004); and George H. Dunne, Generations of Giants: The Story of the Jesuits in China in the Last Decades of the Ming Dynasty (1962).
The last Ming years and the struggles of post-Ming loyalists are discussed in James B. Parsons, The Peasant Rebellions of the Late Ming Dynasty (1970); Lynn A. Struve, The Southern Ming, 1644–1662 (1984); and Jonathan D. Spence and John E. Wills, Jr. (eds.), From Ming to Ch’ing: Conquest, Region, and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century China (1979). Studies in Ming intellectual and religious history are found in Wm. Theodore De Bary et al., Self and Society in Ming Thought (1970), and The Unfolding of Neo-Confucianism (1975). Charles O. Hucker Benjamin Elman Lynn White
The Qing period
Among works on the rise of the Qing dynasty are Robert H.G. Lee, The Manchurian Frontier in Ch’ing History (1970); Silas H.L. Wu, Communication and Imperial Control in China: Evolution of the Palace Memorial System, 1693–1735 (1970); and Frederic Wakeman, Jr., The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of the Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China, 2 vol. (1985).
Useful studies of early foreign relations include Chusei Suzuki, “China’s Relations with Inner Asia: The Hsiung-nu, Tibet,” pp. 180–197 in John K. Fairbank (ed.), The Chinese World Order (1968); Antonio S. Rosso, Apostolic Legations to China of the Eighteenth Century (1948); and Marc Mancall, Russia and China: Their Diplomatic Relations to 1728 (1971).
Society and economy during the mid-Qing period are discussed in Chung-li Chang, The Chinese Gentry (1955, reprinted 1974); T’ung-tsu Chu, Local Government in China Under the Ch’ing (1962, reissued 1988); Madeleine Zelin, The Magistrate’s Taeclass="underline" Rationalizing Fiscal Reform in Eighteenth-Century Ch’ing China (1984); and Yeh-chien Wang, Land Taxation in Imperial China, 1750–1911 (1973).
Among works on intellectual and cultural aspects are Ch’i-ch’ao Liang, Intellectual Trends in the Ch’ing Period, trans. by Immanuel C.Y. Hsu (1959); R. Kent Guy, The Emperor’s Four Treasuries: Scholars and the State in the Late Ch’ien-lung Era (1987); Benjamin A. Elman, On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550–1900 (2005); Cynthia J. Brocaw and Kai-wing Chow (eds.), Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China (2005); and Evelyn Sakakida Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch’ing China (1979).