Blunden, Caroline, and Mark Elvin. Cultural Atlas of China. 1983. Valuable for both its historical maps and its well-illustrated topical essays.

Chang, Kwang-chih, and Xu Pingfang. The Formation of Chinese Civilization: An Archaeological Perspective. 2005. Essays by leading archaeologists in China.

de Bary, William Theodore, and Irene Bloom. Sources of Chinese Tradition. 1999. Large collection of primary sources for Chinese intellectual history, with lengthy introductions.

Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. Cambridge Illustrated History of China, 2d ed. 2010. Well-illustrated brief overview of Chinese history.

Graham, A. C. Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China. 1989. A philosophically rich overview of the intellectual flowering of the Warring States Period.

Ledderose, Lothar. Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art. 2000. A new interpretation of Chinese culture in terms of modules; offers fresh perspectives on the Chinese script and the production of bronzes.

Lewis, Mark. Writing and Authority in Early China. 1999. An examination of early Chinese thought in terms of the ways that texts create authority.

Loewe, Michael, and Edward Shaughnessy, eds. The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C. 1999. An authoritative collection of chapters, half by historians, half by archaeologists.

Mote, F. W. Intellectual Foundations of China. 1989. Brief but stimulating introduction to early Chinese thought.

Puett, Michael. To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China. 2004. Brings an anthropological perspective to the development of early Chinese thought.

Shankman, Steven, and Stephen W. Durrant. Early China / Ancient Greece: Thinking Through Comparisons. 2002. A collection of articles that encourage cross-cultural comparisons.

Sterckx, Roel, ed. Of Tripod and Palate: Food, Politics, and Religion in Traditional China. 2005. Provides a fresh look at many elements in early Chinese culture.

Thorp, Robert. China in the Early Bronze Age: Shang Civilization. 2005. Clear synthesis based on recent research.

Thorp, Robert, and Richard Vinograd. Chinese Art and Culture. 2001. Broad coverage of all of China’s visual arts.

Yang, Xin, ed. The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology. 1999. The well-illustrated catalogue of a major show of Chinese archaeological finds.