Literally anything written by Lu Xun, I enjoyed his short story Medicine quite a lot, he’s consided one of the greatest Chinese authors of all time and he was a favorite of the early CPC.

Xiao Hong’s field of life and death was another book I enjoyed, it revolves around a peasant village pre and during WWII. It’s incredibly inciteful into the lives of everyday peasants during the timeframe, I consider it a must read if you want to study the CPCs revolution.

I do need to give content warnings for Fields of Life and Death, it contains an incredible amount of different forms of violence.

Neither are history but I really enjoyed reading both journey to the west as well as romance of the three kingdoms. Find annotated versions of both, I found the notes helpful.

I read the Julia Lovell translation of journey to the west recently and it was loads of fun. I read it aloud to my child and we all enjoyed it.

Mark Elvin maybe.

100 episodes on the history of pre-modern China by a Chinese channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmkcPo7lEyyJaoOb5L3QNQgZ7dXaRF8Pb

Oh hey an excuse to talk about some of my niche interests. I think I made a comment here a few years ago covering a lot of similar points but iirc that person was asking specifically for fiction. I’ll sort roughly chronologically:

• pre-imperial China: you will not get good fiction for this due to various reasons. Absolutely do not trust any fiction set in this period even if it’s Chinese in origin, most of it is probably based on mythology from much later dynasties. And a lot of archaeological discoveries are actually so relatively recent that you simply will not get good English coverage. There are maybe a handful of exceptions, the movie Confucius from 2010 is very well researched in terms of visuals/customs/etc and perhaps worth a watch for that alone. but absolutely terrible as a movie lol. In fact, traditionally most of what is taught about pre-imperial periods are the various philosophers (mostly Confucius and his successors vs. their rival schools; Daoist figures like Laozi/Zhuangzi; and Mozi specifically has gotten a surge of pop culture popularity in the last decade or two due to the ability to exploit his background for steampunk-esque stuff and the popular perception of his views being more “modern”). For the philosophers there is definitely a ton of easily accessible content out there but idk if there are English subs. Oh this documentary series does have subs now and is pretty good, I think I originally saw the rec for it here actually. Similarly, if you’ve never read Sun Tzu, he’s actually worth a read IF you put him into the correct historical context and have fun with all the theories floating around about his actual identity. I’ve also read a lot of other stuff from these periods myself but most of it either lacks translation or has terrible existing translation and are probably too niche anyway lol. That said, one of my favorite English translations is David Hawkes’s take on the Chuci, my copy is called The Songs of the South but idk if it’s been published under other names. Might not be very meaningful though without the context of Chu being a frontier/“semi-barbarian” kingdom that was actually culturally distinct from popular conceptions of “ancient China”

• early imperial: not Chinese, but the Kingdom manga series about the rise of Qin/imperial unification is genuinely pretty good (and the live action movies are fun). Or was, I haven’t followed it in a while. Obviously takes a ton of liberties due to the action genre but captures the spirit and diversity of the times remarkably well and is surprisingly well researched for what it is. I also highly recommend 2012’s The Last Supper movie about the Chu-Han contention, with one caveat – you need to first be familiar with the traditional understanding of Liu Bang and Xiang Yu, as well as some of the surrounding players, because the movie is very much a subversion of the traditioanl narrative and expects that basic understanding from its audience. One of the very few movies about earlier periods that I will recommend though, the research and thought put into some of the details is marvelous.

• of course Romance of the Three Kingdoms… too much to choose from. It’s almost been too mythologized at this point to get much out of it in terms of history tbh

• skip a few hundred years to high Tang dynasty, where you’ll again have too much to choose from. No specific recs for the historical side but I did enjoy the first Detective Dee movie a lot. The periods between Three Kingdoms and Tang are much less popular; stuff definitely exists but I’m also much less familiar with those periods myself so can’t judge the accuracy.

• It’s a game (100% f2p though), but Where Winds Meet is no joke one of the best ways at the moment to learn about the late Tang/early Song Dynasties (technically set at the tail end of the intermediary Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, but there are lengthy segments about the Tang in decay and a ton of foreshadowing re: future Song developments). Some portions are basically an immersive history lesson that occasionally gets very artsy and metaphorical (hilarious to see Western gamers whining about this with their “walking simulator” complaints). Must play it with Chinese audio by the way, the use of various regional accents and dialects is very deliberate and a major aspect of the storytelling. Even if you’re not a gamer I’d recommend looking up CN videos covering the historical content if you can figure out a way past the language barrier. I think there are one or two YouTubers covering it in English too but haven’t watched them personally so idk if they’re reliable.

• Jin Yong/Louis Cha is pure wuxia but he did like to incorporate actual history into his work unlike some other famous wuxia writers and is such a major cultural touchstone that I will always rec him. I think the Condor Trilogy has an official English translation now? There are a gazillion adapations, just pick one, pretty much every one has its fans. most classic wuxia, including his, is set in post-Tang periods for reasons that Where Winds Meet make obvious.

• if you’re gonna read Journey to the West and RoTK, might as well complete the batch and read Water Margin and Dream of the Red Chamber too (these are the 4 traditional classics everyone expects you to have read, kinda like Shakespeare). And again, realize that a lot of “pop culture” history actually dates to conceptions from the Ming/Qing Dynasties in I guess a similar way as how Victorian views color Anglosphere understanding of older European history.

• past this my knowledge drops off a cliff but yeah Lu Xun is good.

… sorry about the formatting, don’t have time to clean it up