China and the Modern World

China and the Modern World is a series of digital archive collections sourced from preeminent libraries and archives across the world, including the Second Historical Archives of China and the British Library. The series covers a period of about 180 years (1800s to 1980s) when China experienced radical and often traumatic transformations from an inward-looking imperial dynasty into a globally engaged republic. Consisting of monographs, manuscripts, periodicals, correspondence and letters, historical photos, ephemera, and other kinds of historical documents, these collections provide excellent primary source materials for the understanding and research of the various aspects of China during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as diplomacy/international relations, economy/trade, politics, Christianity, sinology, education, science and technology, imperialism, and globalization.

With rare and unique content, trustworthy and extensive bibliographic information, and technology that fits the needs of today's researchers, China and the Modern World is poised to revolutionize research on China and the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

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Collections

China and the Modern World: Missionary, Sinology and Literary Periodicals, 1817–1949

This archive is the essential digital primary source collection for researchers of China in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, providing unique, firsthand accounts of the cultural interactions and conflicts that gave rise to today’s modern China.

China and the Modern World: Records of the Maritime Customs Service of China, 1854–1949

This primary source archive provides an excellent primary source collection, mainly in English, for the study of China and its relations with the Imperial West in the late Qing and Republican periods.

China and the Modern World: Diplomacy and Political Secrets,1869–1950

A valuable collection of primary source material carefully selected from the British India Office Records, covering Anglo-Chinese relations and British interests in South Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia from 1869-1950. The collection comprises records selected from three departments – the Political and Secret Department, the Burma Office, and the Military Department.

China and the Modern World: Hong Kong, Britain, and China, Part I: 1841–1951

An essential primary source archive for researching the history of Hong Kong in the context of modern China and the British Empire in Asia from the inception of this British colony in the 1840's to the early 1950's immediately after the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

China and the Modern World: Hong Kong, Britain, and China Part II: 1965-1993

Digitised primary sources from the records of British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO 40), held at The National Archives, UK. This digital archive documents the process of Hong Kong manoeuvring, surviving, thriving, and transforming into a modern international metropolis and financial centre in the wider context of the Cold War.

China and the Modern World: Imperial China and the West, Part I: 1815–1881

This archive provides more than 500,000 pages of British Foreign Office correspondence from China, offering material relating to the internal politics of China and Britain, and the relationships between other Western powers.

China and the Modern World: Imperial China and the West, Part II: 1865–1905

China and the Modern World: Imperial China and the West 1865–1905 is the second part of an archive that provides a vast and significant primary source for researching every aspect of Chinese-British relations during the nineteenth century.

China and the Modern World: Records of Shanghai and the International Settlement, 1836–1955

British Foreign Office files from The National Archives, Kew, that are related to the history of Shanghai and the International Settlement, plus a small number of files selected from the records of the British Ministry of Labour, Treasury, and War Office, this collection deciphers and illuminates the International Settlement as the seat of formative events that shaped the history of modern China as it transitioned from an imperial dynasty to a globally engaged republic.

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