A Short History of Ancient China

While digging a well in 1974, farmers in Shanxi made one of the world's most astonishing discoveries. From their dusty grave emerged eight thousand life-size soldiers, each one with its own distinctive features and each one individually fashioned to guard the nearby tomb of Qin Shi Huangdi, charismatic first emperor of China. The terracotta warriors, and the horses and chariots buried alongside them, are merely the most visible remnants of a civilization whose Neolithic beginnings in the Yellow River valley led to remarkable cultural advances. Edward L Shaughnessy, a leading authority on ancient China, here reveals the complexity of a society that produced brilliant thinkers like Laozi, Confucius and Mencius. Using as a model the subtle design of Sima Qian's Records of the Historian, China's first proper historical record, the author likewise explores geography, religion, warfare, trade, art and philosophy. With its full account of the entire first millennium of China's past, from the earliest written evidence to the death of the first emperor in 210 BC, this bold new survey helps redefine a formative era in history.