A Sketch of Chinese History, Ancient and Modern
Comprising a Retrospect of the Foreign Intercourse and Trade with China

This 1834 two-volume work sought to diminish Anglophone ignorance of China's history from mythological times to the ruling Qing dynasty.

Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff (Author)

9781108079464, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 22 January 2015

452 pages, 1 map
21.6 x 14 x 2.6 cm, 0.57 kg

Remarkable yet controversial, the Prussian-born Protestant missionary Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff (1803–51) sought to spread Christianity in the Far East. A gifted linguist, he sailed to Siam and worked on translating the Bible into Thai. The British missionary Robert Morrison had fired his interest in China, and Gützlaff later focused his evangelising efforts there, learning several dialects and distributing translated literature. He also worked for the East India Company, notably serving as an interpreter during negotiations for the Treaty of Nanking. Also reissued in this series are his Journal of Three Voyages along the Coast of China (1834) and China Opened (1838). The present work, published in two volumes in 1834, aimed to diminish Anglophone ignorance of China's vast history. Volume 1 surveys contemporary Chinese geography, government and culture before tracing Chinese history from mythological times to the end of the Ming dynasty in 1644.

Advertisement
1. Geographical remarks
2. Government and laws
3. Character, usages, industry, language, sciences, religion
4. Chronology
5. Mythological era
6. Hea dynasty
7. Shang dynasty
8. Chow dynasty
9. Tsin dynasty
10. Han dynasty
11. Middle ages
12. Sung dynasty
13. Tse dynasty
14. Tang dynasty
15. The Woo-tae
16. Modern history.

Subject Areas: Asian history [HBJF]