I've suddenly found myself with a lot of free time. My favorite part of AP World was always Chinese and East Asian history, but we never went too in-depth.
What are some good books for covering the comprehensive history of China at a level acceptable for an amateur historian? It's also OK to point me to syllabi and I can take it from there.
I was going to reference syllabi from my school, but our only Chinese history class is scoped to modern (read: 19th- and 20th-century) history. And yes, I am willing to read and digest content for a very, very long time.
The History of Imperial China series edited by Timothy Brook consists of six roughly 200-page long volumes, each of which covers one or two dynastic periods. In order, they are:
The first three are by Mark Edward Lewis, the Song volume by Dieter Kuhn, the Yuan and Ming by Brook, and the Qing by William Rowe.
The approach is more thematic than chronological for the most part, though Rowe does quite effectively blend the two approaches.
This is less a “complete” history, but you should check out “Sources of East Asian Tradition” edited by William Theodore De Bary. The book is a massive collection of primary sources from China, Korea and Japan dating back as far as written sources from east Asia exist and all adeptly translated into English. I used this book for an East Asian traditions class I took at University and I found myself reading more and more of it just for fun since it proved to be such a vast source of information. If you are doing research as well this book is invaluable since it consists entirely of translated primary sources.