Governing China

John W. Dardess is Professor Emeritus, Department of History, University of Kansas.

This compact narrative history of government institutions and their dialectical relation to society makes a perfect introduction to traditional China for political science, modern history, and comparative politics classes. The thesis, upheld by both specifics in lively prose and thought-provoking cross-period comparisons, is that unity, however valorized, always required hard work: military, political, and cultural creativity amidst ever-changing ethnic, class, and religious formations. Dardess also washes out old libels on non-Han, female, and eunuch power holders simply by recounting the facts. --S. Schneewind, University of California, San Diego