Introduction: What Is Early Chinese History?, Paul R. Goldin\
Part I: Chronology
1. Main Issues in the Study of the Chinese Neolithic, Gideon Shelach-Lavi
2. Of Millets and Wheat: Diet and Health on the Central Plain of China during the Neolithic and Bronze Age, Kate Pechenkina
3. The Bronze Age before the Zhou Dynasty, Robert Bagley
4. The Western Zhou State, Li Feng
5. The Age of Territorial Lords, Chen Shen
6. The Qin Dynasty, Charles Sanft
7. The Former Han Empire, Vincent S. Leung
8. The Latter Han Empire and the End of Antiquity, Wicky W.K. Tse
Part II: Topical Studies
9. The Old Chinese Language, Axel Schuessler
10. Writing, Luo Xinhui; tr. Zachary Hershey and Paul R. Goldin
11. The Spirit World, Jue Guo
12. Religious Thought, Ori Tavor
13. Political Thought, Yuri Pines
14. Food and Agriculture, Roel Sterckx
15. Warfare, Wicky W.K. Tse
16. Currency, François Thierry
17. Women in Early China: Views from the Archaeological Record, Anne Behnke Kinney
18. An Overview of the Qin-Han Legal System from the Perspective of Recently Unearthed Documents, Kyung-ho Kim and Ming-chiu Lai
19. Literature, Stephen Durrant
20. Art, Wang Haicheng
21. "Medicine" in Early China, Miranda Brown
22. Mathematics, Karine Chemla
23. Astronomy, David Pankenier

The study of early China has been radically transformed over the past fifty years by archaeological discoveries, including both textual and non-textual artefacts. Excavations of settlements and tombs have demonstrated that most people did not lead their lives in accordance with ritual canons, while previously unknown documents have shown that most received histories were written retrospectively by victors and present a correspondingly anachronistic perspective.
This handbook provides an authoritative survey of the major periods of Chinese history from the Neolithic era to the fall of the Latter Han Empire and the end of antiquity (AD 220). It is the first volume to include not only a comprehensive review of political history but also detailed treatments of topics that transcend particular historical periods, such as:
Warfare and political thought
Cities and agriculture
Language and art
Medicine and mathematics
Providing a detailed analysis of the most up-to-date research by leading scholars in the field of early Chinese history, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Chinese history, Asian archaeology, and Chinese studies in general. ---provided by publisher