The Search for Modern China

The Search for Modern China is a 1990 non-fiction book by Jonathan D. Spence, published by Century Hutchinson and W. W. Norton & Company.

It covers the period 1600 to 1989. According to Spence, the goal was to explain how Modern China was created rather than writing about Modern China directly. Spence stated that he chose 1600 as the starting point so he could "get a full sense of how China's current problems have arisen, and of what resources[...]the Chinese can call upon to solve them."

Theresa Munford in Far Eastern Economic Review, described it as "more of a textbook" than The Gate of Heavenly Peace, which she described as lighter reading.