英文版中国简史.pdf

The brief introduction to China History [英文版中国简史－推荐] For quite a long time Chinese truly believed that China was the center of the world.(Today they still call China Zhongguo which means central kingdom in English.)They were so proud ofthemselves and living peacefully.And for quite a long time their economy remained self-sufficient that they never needed to trade with anybody for anything.Their world was closed and so much isolated.But wealso found some good reasons for this unique and interesting Chinese social pattern due to its special geographical location in the world. Actually Chinese culture started from the middle reaches oftheYellowRiver,same asEgypt,India and Babylon originating from some big rivers or lakes as well.But China was bordered by the huge mountains like Himalayas in the south,the terrible deserts in the west,the forever frozen Siberia up in the north and the Pacific Ocean to the east.Obviously Chinese were not able to go beyond these barriers and to meet anybody easily, maybe once they wished and tried,but the fact was they had been living alone for so many years.So far no records could show China ever had any contacts of any kinds with India until 1st centuryAD though theywereso close to each otherlike neighborsand their cultures began almost the same period of time,and the Himalayas stood between these two great countries keeping our people from meeting each other.About3000 years ago Mongols grewup and began to ply with Chinese from the north.This was the firsttime thatChinese had been made torethink who theywereand where theseMongols werefrom.Nowwecan imagine how difficult it was for Chinese to change for a new way of living and thinking and howhard it was for them to share their world with others.Their easyand peaceful life and their pride in being the only people in the world were challenged so much.They gotlostcompletely.They once tried to rebuild their countryand sys