This book compiles and synthesizes the essential cultural knowledge of Chinese civilization is an easily accessible one-volume edition. Designed for general readers, it is a reader"s guidebook to more than five thousand years of Chinese culture and society from prehistory to the present. It includes discussion on the foundations of art and aesthetics; the formation of symbols and cultural/spiritual motifs; the role of divination, law, and philosophical flowering; pottery, jade, and other artworks; ethics and law; religion; and other factors which have allowed China to flourish as one of the world"s great civilizations.