01 Beginnings of Chinese Culture 1
02 Confucius: The First Private Teacher in Chinese History 9
03 Lao Zi: The Founder of Taoism 19
04 The Warring States Period: The Contention of a Hundred Schools 27
05 Ancient Historians: Uninterrupted Recording of Chinese History 35
06 Dong Zhongshu and Wang Chong: Two Contradictory Great Philosophers of the Han Dynasties 43
07 The Coming of Buddhism to China 51
08 Pure Talk and Mysterious Learning 59
09 Chan (Zen) Buddhism 67
10 Tang Poetry and Major Tang Poets 75
11 Tang Prose and Fiction: The Literary Reform Movement of the Tang Dynasty and the Development of Fiction 87
12 Wang Anshi, Sima Guang and Su Shi: Three Great Figures of the Northern Song Dynasty 95
13 Zhu Xi: The Synthesizer of the Philosophy of Principle 105
14 Ci-Poems in Irregular Meter 111
15 The Four Great Inventions 119
16 Yuan Drama: One of the Three Peaks in the History of Drama in the World 127
17 The Rebuilding of Beijing and Zheng He’s Voyages 135
18 Ming Novels and Its Three Masterpieces 143
19 The Rise of Southern Drama and Great Advance of Short Fictions in the Ming Dynasty 151
20 Ming and Early Qing Thinkers: the Yangming School and Outstanding Progressive Scholars 159
21 Early Qing Fiction and Drama 171
22 Cao Xueqin and Dream of the Red Mansions 181
23 Traditional Chinese Painting 189
24 The Opium War and Changes in Cultural Trends After It 199
25 Causes of the Long Feudal Period 207
