China

Four thousand years of Chinese history, from oracle bones to the world's second-largest economy, with maps of capitals and trade routes and timelines of every dynasty. Each chapter names its sources and separates what archaeology confirms from what later histories tell.

Eleven parts: Neolithic China and the debated Xia; Shang and Zhou, oracle bones and the Mandate of Heaven; the Hundred Schools of thought; Qin and Han unification, the civil service and the Silk Road; division and the Sui-Tang golden age; the Song and its commercial and technical revolution; the Yuan under the Mongols; the Ming, Zheng He and the Forbidden City; the Qing, the Opium Wars and collapse; the Republic, civil war and the People's Republic; and reform and China today, including its ties with Africa.