A Concise History of the Qing Dynasty: Volume 1

The Qing Dynasty was a feudal institution established by the upper dominant class of the Manchu ethnic minority; it was also the last of the feudal autocratic monarchy dynasties in China’s long history. This account presents the history of the Manchurian rise, flourishing, decline, and demise and details the development, creation, and struggle for a modern China. Divided into four volumes, this valuable record begins with the ancestors of the Manchu and the Manchu ascendance and ends with the Opium War in 1840. It argues that as China entered the modern historical period, great and revolutionary changes took place in society—changes that were fundamentally different from those of the early and mid-Qing Dynasty.