New Database: China From Empire to Republic

The Great Wall of China

The Library recently purchasedChina From Empire to Republic: Missionary, Sinology, and Literary Periodicals (1817-1949), a new database of digitized periodicals from Gale Cengage Learning, covering the late Qing Dynasty and Republican Era in China. The database provides a valuable primary source of China’s transition from an insular nation controlled by an imperial dynasty to a major global power.

China From Empire to Republic is comprised of 17 English-language journals, published from 1817 to 1949. Some of the titles are: The Chinese Recorder (教務雜誌, 1867–1941), produced by Protestant missionaries in China; The China Review: or Notes and Queries on the Far East (中國評論, 1872–1901), one of the first major Western journals of sinology; and The China Critic (中國評論週報, 1928–1946), a journal published by Chinese intellectuals who had studies in the United States. 

The articles include a variety of topics. There are eyewitness accounts of events in China, including the Boxer Rebellion, the Sino-Japanese War, and World War II; reports from missionaries and missionary boards of activities in coastal and western China; and reflections on Chinese culture, literature, and language by both Western and Chinese scholars. We were particularly amused to discover several articles on Chinese nursery rhymes.

The database can be cross-searched with other databases from Gale via Artemis Primary Sources, and complements the Library’s existing primary source collections on China. Purchase of China From Empire to Republic was generously funded by Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service Library in Doha, Qatar.