Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

China is the most exciting rising power in the world today. The explosive growth of its economy and the possibility that it might soon become the next superpower, dominant in East Asia and influential in every part of the world, has attracted universal interest, admiration and envy.Most histories of China approach that huge and populous country through the story of its dynasties, its struggle to defend its borders and its internal politics. Harry Gelber's The Dragon and the Foreign Devilsis the first history for the general reader to tell the story of China from the outside as well as from the inside. It explores the relationships involved. It explains what moved these minor and major foreign societies and how concerns with China fitted into their own major interests and views of the world. And it outlines the recurring cycles of Chinese history, from turmoil and disorder to strong central government and back to turmoil.