Spanning China's humiliating defeat in the Opium Wars in the nineteenth century to its triumphant hosting of the 2008 summer Olympic games, this popular text conveys the drama of China's struggle to modernize against the backdrop of a proud and difficult history. The book traces the major developments of that journey: the breakdown of imperial China in the face of Western and Japanese encroachments; the founding of the Chinese republic; the early struggles between the ideologies and armies of Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong; China's bitter and costly war with Japan; the final shootout that sent Chiang to Taiwan and Mao to Beijing; the turbulent first decades of the People's Republic, and the post-revolutionary generations of leaders who steered the country's dramatic shift to a globalizing economic strategy. Current issues and the most recent historical scholarship have been incorporated into this updated fourth edition.