China: A History — John Keay

Keay covers China's four thousand years of recorded history in a single volume, navigating the succession of dynasties, the continuities of culture and governance, and the ruptures of conquest and collapse. He is attentive to what is genuinely distinctive about Chinese political culture — the idea of the Mandate of Heaven, the examination system, the role of the bureaucracy — rather than simply mapping Western political concepts onto a different system.