This volume in The Cambridge History of China is devoted to the history of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), with some account of the three decades before the dynasty's formal establishment, and for the Ming courts that survived in SOuth China for a generation after 1644. Volume 7 deals primarily with the political developments of the period, but it also incorporates background in social, economic, and cultural history where this is relevant to the course of events. The Ming period is the only segment of later imperial history during which all of China proper was ruled by a native, or Han, dynasty. The success of the Chinese in regaining control over their own government is an important event in history and the Ming dynasty has thus been regarded, bith in Ming times and even more so in this century, as an era of Chinese resurgence. The volume provides the largest and most detailed account of the Ming period in any language. Summarizing all modern research, both in Chinese, Japanese, and Western languages, the authors have gone far beyond a summary of the state of the field, but have incorporated original research on subjects that have never before been described in detail.
Although it is written by specialists, the goals and approach of this Cambridge history are to explain and describe the Ming dynasty to an audience that wilol include scholars and students as well as general readers who do not have a specialized knowledge of Chinese history.