The Great Qing Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of a Dynasty

This book recounts 296 years of Chinese history, from Nurhaci’s founding of Later Jin in 1616 and Hong Taiji’s establishment of the Great Qing in 1636 to the Qing emperor’s abdication in 1912. During this period, the rulers expanded their territory and laid the foundations for the borders of modern China. The era saw both the early “Kangxi-Qianlong Golden Age” and the later extravagance and chaos of a troubled age, when eunuchs held sway. After Western powers forced open the empire’s doors with their superior ships and guns in 1840, reform movements such as the Self-Strengthening Movement and the Hundred Days’ Reform took the stage. Yet they all ended in failure, blocked by conservatives. Chinese society sank ever deeper into the mire of a semifeudal, semicolonial state.