A Brief History of Chinese Civilization,   ISBN:9780155055681

Customer Rating: 

In this relatively short work you will get a basic overview of the 4000 or so years of Chinese history. Schirokauer does a good job of giving a concise yet somewhat detailed account of not only Chinese history, but also developments in art, culture, religion, and philosophy. I was also pleased with his inclusion of the common people as well as emperors, generals, etc. The only problem is that this book suffers from a common problem among history textbooks; it is a bit dry. The book is not terribly written, but it took more a month to slog through b/c I frankly did not look forward to reading it even though I found the subject matter interesting and relevant (I live in the Far East). All that said this is a good place to start for a study of Chinese history. Just a bit of a slog.

Customer Rating: 

I found this a well indexed book to support a course in the History of Chinese Civilization (as a student) - easy to digest but with rich illustration of pieceds of art etc.

Good text for a first year CHinese or Asian history course or for background to language and culture.