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