1. Chang, Hao. 1987. Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search for Order and Meaning (1890–1911). Berkeley-Los Angeles-London: University of California Press. (A classical study on four key figures of late 19th and early 20th century China: Kang Youwei, Tan Sitong, Zhang Binglin and Liu Shipei.)
2. Cheng, Anne. 1997. “Nationalism, Citizenship and the Old Text/New Text Controversy Late Nineteenth Century China.” In J. Fogel and P. Zarrow, eds., Imagining the People: Chinese Intellectuals and the Concept of Citizenship, 1890–1911, Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, pp. 61–81. (On the reform-minded tradition of New Text Confucianism in late imperial times.)
3. Crossley, Pamela Kyle. 1999. A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology. Berkeley-Los Angeles-London: University of California Press. (On the Qing dynasty’s incorporation of different political traditions and the way it shaped imperial identities.)
4. Elliott, Mark. 2001. The Manchu Way. The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press. (On the history of the Eight Banners and Manchu identity in Qing China, especially regarding economic, social, and administrative structures.)
5. Ge, Zhaoguang 葛兆光. 2011. Here in China I Dwell: Reconstructing Historical Discourses on “China” for Our Time宅茲中國: 重建有關 ‘中國’ 的歷史論述 . Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. (On the historical narratives about the concept of “China”)