The Great Chinese Revolution: 1800-1985
John King Fairbank

Chapter 1:  Understanding China's Revolution

Describes landscape of China, then tries to bring size and population
into perspective.
	*country slightly bigger than continental us, but 4x
	population.
	*However, most of population and history crammed into small
	area.

Reasons China is diferent
	*reasons China fell behind technologically (no need for rr's,
	no mass agriculture.)
	*Ruling elite for 3000 years, built in conservatism from
	confucianism.  wanted to control all advances so that they
	could remain in power.
	*China didn't go to sea, because so much land to explore, and
	nowhere near to go.
	*"Rice Culture" -- high land usage, so many people per mile^2.
	wasn't suitable for machinery, unlike wheat in Europe.
	*state, society, and culture integrated, little chance of
	pluralistic system
	*strong sense of cultural superiority because of history made
	rulers unwilling to learn from outsiders.
	
Ends saying that Western knowledge about China is poor, and we cover
it far too briefly.




Chapter 2: The Manchu Ruler's Outlook from Peking

Deals with latter part of Qing dynasty, which ran 1644-1911

Summary of Qing dynasty as we did on Tuesday, from founder Nurhachi to
end in 1911.  
	*set up examination system
	*main goal seemed to be to stay in power
	*set up system of a very few governing a very large many

Suddenly skips to early 1800's -- very RANDOM
	*briefly describes random, unnamed peasant uprising in 1813
	*random descriptions of Tao-kuang Emporer, including training,
	sexual habits, and travels...
	*long description of examination system, including ways of
	cheating, and why people did so
	*Brief mention of foreign policy -- maintain what we have
	
In general, chapter tries to present many facts about Manchu rule, but
throws so many together they come out seeming random.  No clear
picture, nor order.



Chapter 3: Some Theoretical Approaches

Speculation about Chinese backgrounds, discussion of different
theories:
	*"exceptionalism" -- stress differences about China
	*"comparative sociological" -- try to match features in
	chinese history those in western.

author disagrees with both, says they are too superficial, and clearly
wrong because you have to stretch generalities too far.

covers current view -- chinese culture based around superior/inferior
relationships.  led to strong central governments, ones that abused
peasents in many ways (corruption, etc).  

Author never presents what he believes is correct, but disagrees with
those presented by everyone else

Sets out layout of rest of book -- will he actually have some order???
