China (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from China<br><br>The antiquity of China is so great, and the history of the Empire covers so vast a period that it was plainly impossible to compress the whole subject within the limits of a single volume of this series. It was determined, therefore, to limit the record, in the present instance, to the annals of the Empire from the time of Marco Polo to the present day, leaving the earlier history of the country to appear later.<br><br>As is well known, the Chinese possess histories of their various dynasties, and they attempt to insure that these should be truthful records by ruling that the events of each dynasty should not be described by contemporary historians but by authors under the succeeding regime. It might be supposed that this system would entail the compilation of biased and ex parte chronicles. But happily Chinese historians, like the rest of their countrymen, are so entirely devoid of patriotism that they have no inducement to pervert facts, or to trim their sails to the necessities of party feeling.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.