The Qing dynasty was one of the greatest empires in world history, spanning 3 centuries and hundreds of millions of Manchu, Mongol and Chinese subjects throughout East and Central Asia. The People's Republic of China has built its claims to global hegemony on Qing foundations. Without understanding the Qing's rise and fall, we cannot properly interpret China’s role in the modern world. This book tells that story.

Peter C. Perdue examines how the Qing empire expanded to occupy a vast territory and then endured for centuries, its longevity based on ideology, cultural display, and geopolitical strategy. As the population grew, adventurers explored the frontiers and businessmen created sprawling networks of commerce. In the mid-nineteenth century, severe internal and external blows nearly brought it down. Yet it survived into the twentieth century, toppled by the doctrine of nationalism, which created the successor states of China, Taiwan, and Mongolia.

Concluding with an assessment of the legacy of the Qing for modern nation-states, ethnic identities, and foreign relations, no-one who wants to understand modern Asia can afford to miss this tour-de-force.

Peter C. Perdue is Professor Emeritus of History at Yale University. He is the author of Exhausting the Earth: State and Peasant in Hunan; China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia; Chinese Environmental History: Past and Present, and coeditor of Imperial Formations and Asia Inside Out: Changing Times, Connected Places, Itinerant People (3 vols.).