The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection

The most widely used primary-source reader for the modern China course, thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the new edition of Spence, The Search for Modern China.

The new edition of this outstanding documents collection displays a stronger blend of social history―pieces reflecting everyday life, family, social networks, and culture―and political history―critical proclamations, treaties, laws, and other public acts. Many of the documents are translated into English for the first time and available only in this book.

Informative headnotes accompany the selections, providing context and helping students with unfamiliar names, places, and events. This collection is the perfect source for a firsthand look at modern Chinese history.  

Janet Chen is a professor of history and East Asian studies at Princeton University, where she has taught courses on modern China and East Asia since 2006. Her books include Guilty of Indigence: The Urban Poor in China, 1900–1953, a study of the destitute homeless during a time of war and revolution, and The Sounds of Mandarin: Learning to Speak a National Language in China and Taiwan, 1913–1960, a social history of how people learned to speak Mandarin.

Pei-Kai Cheng is professor of history at City University of Hong Kong.


Michael Lestz is professor of history and chairperson of the history department at Trinity College.


Jonathan D. Spence (1936―2021) was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, where he taught for more than forty years. He was awarded MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. The Search for Modern China won the Lionel Gelber Award and the Kiriyama Book Prize.