Encyclopedia of Chinese History

As China grows into the position of being the world’s dominant power, it is increasingly important for us in the West to gain an understanding of its language, its culture and its history – what it is that has made it the country it is today. This is a vast and complex subject. Chinese scholars sometimes claim a single straightforward evolutionary sweep from Peking Man (680,000-780,000 years ago) to the present, with a smooth development into a single empire. This is, of course, nonsense. All the evidence suggests innumerable movements of people into and out of the area over the...