[Transcriber's Note: The following text contains numerous non-English words containing diacritical marks not contained in the ASCII character set. Characters accented by those marks, and the corresponding text representations are as follows (where x represents the character being accented). All such symbols in this text above the character being accented: breve (u-shaped symbol): [)x] caron (v-shaped symbol): [vx] macron (straight line): [=x] acute (égu) accent: ['x] Additionally, the author has spelled certain words inconsistently. Those have been adjusted to be consistent where possible. Examples of such adjustments are as follows: From To Northwestern North-western Southwards Southward Programme Program re-introduced reintroduced practise practice Lotos Lotus Ju-Chên Juchên cooperate co-operate life-time lifetime man-power manpower favor favour etc. In general such changes are made to be consistent with the predominate usage in the text, or if there was not a predominate spelling, to the more modern.] A HISTORY OF CHINA by WOLFRAM EBERHARD CONTENTS INTRODUCTION _THE EARLIEST TIMES_ Chapter I: PREHISTORY 1 Sources for the earliest history 2 The Peking Man 3 The Palaeolithic Age 4 The Neolithic Age 5 The eight principal prehistoric cultures 6 The Yang-shao culture 7 The Lung-shan culture 8 The first petty States in Shansi Chapter II: THE SHANG DYNASTY (_c_. 1600-1028 B.C.) 1 Period, origin, material culture 2 Writing and Religion 3 Transition to feudalism _ANTIQUITY_ Chapter III: THE CHOU DYNASTY (_c_. 1028-257 B.C.) 1 Cultural origin of the Chou and end of the Shang dynasty 2 Feudalism in the new empire 3 Fusion of Chou and Shang 4 Limitation of the imperial power 5 Changes in the relative strength of the feudal states 6 Confucius 7 Lao Tz[)u] Chapter IV: THE CONTENDING STATES (481-256 B.C.): DISSOLUTION OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM 1 Social and military changes 2 Economic changes 3 Cultural changes Chapter V: THE CH'IN DYNASTY (256-207 B.C.) 1 Towards the unitary State 2 Centralization in every field 3 Frontier Defence. Internal collapse _THE MIDDLE AGES_ Chapter VI: THE HAN DYNASTY (206 B.C.-A.D. 220)