Baark, Erik. Lightning Wires: The Telegraph and China's Technological Modernization, 1860–1890. Westport, Conn: Greenwood, 1997.

Bai Yuntao, ed. Bainian Zhongguo shehui tupu (Atlas of one hundred years of Chinese society) 百年中国社会图谱. Chengdu: Sichuan Renmin Chubanshe, 2003.
These ten volumes focus on ten aspects of Chinese society in the twentieth century, including the development and change of housing conditions, the entertainment industry, physical education, the intellectual selection system, technology and science, social rituals, costume, and the rise of women's social status. A number of historical photos and other pictorial works (such as posters and drawings) are used as historical evidence to facilitate the observations about social change. Each photograph is used broadly as evidence of some historical change, although neither specific years nor source information is provided.

• Bai, Guoqin. Cong jiu hunsang jiaqu dao xin liyi fengsu (From old marriage and funeral ceremonies to new rituals and customs) 从旧婚丧嫁娶到新礼仪风俗.
• Chen Jiantang. Cong dadao changmao dao xiandai wuqi (From broadswords and spears to modern weapons) 从大刀长矛到现代武器.
• Dong Zenggang. Cong laoshi chema zhouqiao dao xinshi jiaotong gongju (From old fashioned carts, horses, boats and bridges to new style transportation vehicles) 从老式车马舟桥到新式交通工具.
• Gao Cui. Cong "dong Ya bing fu" dao " tiyu qiangguo" (From "the Sick Man of East Asia" to "strong country") 从 "东亚病夫" 到体育强国.
• Liu Jianmei. Cong chuantong xiaoqian dao xiandai yule (From traditional consumption to modern entertainment) 从传统消遣到现代娱乐.
• Wang Dongxia. Cong changpao magua dao xizhuang gelu (From long gowns and mandarin jackets to Western dress and leather shoes) 从长袍马褂到西装革履.
• Wang Yunjuan. Cong jiu minju dao xin shequ (From old residential houses to new communities) 从旧民居到新社区.
• Wu Yan. Cong xiaojiao nuren dao shehui banbiantian (From small-footed women to half the sky of the society) 从小脚女人到社会半边天.
• Zheng Guzhu. Cong gulao faming dao gaoxin keji (From ancient inventions to new advanced sciences and technologies) 从古老发明到高新科技.
• Zhang Junyong. Cong tu xiucai dao yang boshi (From native Xiucai to overseas doctors) 从土秀才到洋博士.

Chen Zhengqing, ed. Chenfeng de laozhaopian: 70nianqian waiguoren jingtou zhongde
Zhongguo (Dust-laden photographs: China before the lens of Westerners 70 years ago) 尘封的老照片: 70 年前外国人镜头中的中国. Chengdu: Sichuan Meishu Chubanshe, 2005.
This book features 427 mostly small black-and-white reproductions that cover a wide range of subjects, including landscape, architecture, social lives in cities and rural areas, religious life, ethnic groups, education, and cultural heritage.

Coltman, Robert, Jr. The Chinese: Their Present and Future; Medical, Political, and Social. Philadelphia: F. A. Davis, 1891.

Dikotter, Frank. Exotic Commodities: Modern Objects and Everyday Life in China. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2006.

Gammon, Charles F. Souvenir Album of China, Including Four Hundred and Fifty Photographs. Shanghai: Denniston & Sullivan, 1908.

Elliott, J. "American Photographs of the Boxer Rising." History of Photography 21, no. 2 (1997): 162–69.

Ezekiel, S. Leaders of Commerce, Industry and Thought in China. Shanghai: Geo.T. Lloyd, 1924.

Gael, Newton. Picture Paradise: Asia-Pacific Photography 1840s–1940s. Parkes, A.C.T.: National Gallery of Australia, 2008.

Ge Congmin. "Photography, Shadow Play, Beijing Opera and the First Chinese Film." Eras: School of Historical Studies On-line Journal 3 (2002). http://arts.monash.edu.au/publications/eras/edition-3/ge.php#b3.

Hacker, Arthur. China Illustrated: Western Views of the Middle Kingdom. Boston: Tuttle, 2004.

Hay, Jonathan. "Notes on Chinese Photography and Advertising in Late Nineteenth-Century Shanghai." In Jason C. Kuo, ed., Visual Culture in Shanghai 1850s–1930s. Washington, D.C.: New Academia, 2007.

Heinrich, Larrisa N. "The Pathological Empire: Early Medical Photography in China." History of Photography 30, no. 1 (2006): 25–37.

Hevia, James Louis. English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China. Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 2003.

Hevia, James L. "The Photography Complex: Exposing Boxer China (1900–1901), Making Civilization." In Rosalind C. Morris, ed., Photographies East: The Camera and Its Histories in East and Southeast Asia, 79–120. Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 2009.

Jackson, Beverley, and Hania Tallmadge. A Grand Tour of Asia 1910. Berkeley: Ten Speed, 2006.

Johnson, C. The Yangtse Gorges: A Photographic Souvenir. China?: n.p., 1901.

Lin Jing. The Photographs of Cixi in the Collection of the Palace Museum. Beijing: Forbidden City Publishing House, 2002.

Lu Hanchao. The Birth of a Republic: Francis Stafford's Photographs of China's 1911 Revolution and Beyond. Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 2010.

Lu Xun. "On Photography." Translated by Kirk A. Denton. In Kirk A. Denton, ed. Modern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on Literature, 1893–1945, 196–203. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1996.

Marbot, Bernard, and Rene Vienet. Notes sur quelques photographies de la Chine au XIXe siècle. Paris: Centre de publication Asie orientale, 1978.

Melchers, Bernd, and Ernst Fuhrmann. China. Erster Teil: Das Lande der Mitte, ein Umriss von E. Fuhrmann. Zweiter Teil: Der Tempelbau, von dr. B. Melchers. Hagen: Folkwang, 1921.

Moore, Oliver. "Historical Views and Histories of Viewing." IAAS Newsletter 46 (2008): S9–11.

Moore, Oliver. "Photography in China: A Global Medium Locally Appropriated." IIAS Newsletter 44 (2007): 6.

Moore, Oliver. "Visualizing Change: The Negative, Positive and Double Images of Photography's Subjects in Early Modern China." In Guo li Taiwan da xue wen xue yuan, ed. Zhongguo wen xue li shi yu si xiang zhong de guan nian bian qian guo ji xue shu yan tao hui lun wen ji 中國文學歷史與思想中的觀念變遷國際學術研討會論文集, 291–309. Taipei: Taiwan Daxue Wenxueyuan: Zongjingxiao Taiwan Xuesheng Shuju, 2005.

Pang, Laikwan. The Distorting Mirror: Visual Modernity in China. Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press, 2007.

Price, George Uvedale. Celestials. Yokohama: Kelly & Walsh, ca. 1896.

Qu Wei and Li Shuxiao, eds. Youtai ren zai Ha' erbin = The Jews in Harbin 犹太人在哈尔滨. Beijing: Shehui Kexue Wenxian Chubanshe, 2003.

Reed, Christopher A. Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876–1937. Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press, 2004.

The Commercial Press, ed. Dageming xiezhenhua = War Scenes of the Chinese Revolution 大革命寫真畫. 14 vols. Shanghai: The Commercial Press, 1911–12.

The Commercial Press. Zhongguo Mingsheng = Views of China 中国名胜. Shanghai: The Commercial Press, ca. 1912.

Shu Zongqiao. "Shanghai Zaoqide Sheyingye" (Professional photography in early Shanghai) 上海早期的照相业. Zhongguo Sheying Shiliao (Historical materials of Chinese photography) 中国摄影史料 3 (1982): 25–27.

Sirén, Osvald. Bilder från Kina: Fotografier och text. Stockholm: Nordisk Rotogravyr, 1936.

———. "A Chinese Emperor Plays Photographer's Assistant." The New York Times Magazine, 22 April 1923.

Stapp, William F. "Souvenirs of Asia: Photography in the Far East 1840–1920." Image 37, nos. 3–4 (1994): 3–30.

Thiriez, Régine. Barbarian Lens: Western Photographers of the Qianlong Emperor's European Palaces. Amsterdam: Gordon & Breach, 1998.

Thiriez, Régine. "Festivals and Photography in the Last Decades of Imperial China." In Anders Hansson, Bonnie S. McDougall, and Frances Weightman, eds., The Chinese at Play: Festivals, Games and Leisure, 88–108. London: Kegan Paul, 2002.

Thiriez, Régine. "Library Collections and Early Photography in China." International Association of Orientalist Librarians IAOL Bulletin, no. 44 (2000): 200.

Thiriez, Régine. "Old Photography and the Yuanmingyuan." In Helene E. Roberts, ed., Art History through the Camera's Lens, 263–80. New York: Gordon and Breach, 1995.

Thiriez, Régine. "Photography and Portraiture in Nineteenth-Century China." East Asian History, nos. 17/18 (1999): 77–102.

Tuo, Xiaotang, ed. Zhonghua jiusu (Old customs of China) 中华旧俗. Beijing: Zhongguo Shudian, 1997.
Compiling about six hundred pictures from the 1880s to 1949, this book focuses on ethnographic and folk history. It is organized under ten themes, including weddings and funerals, household life, costumes, dining, leisure activities, cultural life, folk houses, and travel. A number of photographs focus on ethnic minorities such as Mongolians, Manchurians, Muslims and the Miao.

Vinograd, Richard. "Satire and Situation: Images of the Artist in Late Nineteenth-Century China." Phoebus 8 (1998): 110–31.

Wang, Eugene Y. "Perceptions of Change, Changes in Perception: West Lake as Contested Site/Sight in the Wake of the 1911 Revolution." Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 12, no. 2 (2000): 73–122.

Wildman, Rounsevelle. China's Open Door: A Sketch of Chinese Life and History. Boston: Lothrop, 1900.

Wiltshire, Trea. Encounters with China: Merchants, Missionaries and Mandarins. Hong Kong: FormAsia, 1995.

Wright, Arnold. Twentieth-Century Impressions of Hong-Kong, Shanghai, and Other Treaty Ports of China: Their History, People, Commerce, Industries, and Resources. London: Lloyd's Greater Britain Pub. Co., 1908.

Wue, Roberta. "Essentially Chinese: The Chinese Portrait Subject in Nineteenth-Century Photography." In Wu Hung and Katherine R. Tsiang, eds., Body and Face in Chinese Visual Culture, 257–80. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Asia Center, 2005.

Wu Jingheng. Shangxia gujin tan (20 hui) (Chats about the old and the new [20 episodes]) 上下古今談 [20 回]. Hong Kong: Nandao Chubanshe, 1956. In episode eight, the discussion centers on the inventions of the telescope and the camera, and the principles of fixing the image.

Xinhai geming huashi = Pictorial Story of the China-Revolution in 1911 辛亥革命畫史. Hong Kong: Jianghan Chubanshe, 1920s.

Yang, Chia-Ling. "The Crisis of the Real: Portraiture and Photography of the Late Nineteenth Century Shanghai." In Jennifer Purtle and Hans Bjarne Thomsen, eds., Looking Modern: East Asian Visual Culture from Treaty Ports to World War II, 20–37. Chicago: Art Media Resources, 2009.

Yeh, Catherine Vance. Shanghai Love: Courtesans, Intellectuals, and Entertainment Culture, 1850–1910. Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 2006.

Zhao Suosheng and Ding Fang zhu bian. Shizhe rusi: 20 shiji Zhongguo minjian shenghuo = Panorama of Chinese Life in the 20th Century 逝者如斯—20 世纪中国民间生活. Nanjing: Jiangsu Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 2000.
Divided into the four sections of City, Country, Town, and Family, this eight-volume series presents hundreds of photos about a wide variety of twentieth-century themes (e.g., transportation, the health system, entertainment industry, etc.) that deal with the lives of ordinary Chinese people. Sometimes a very short paragraph provides historical context about the photographers, but not necessarily for the photographs themselves. Information about when the pictures were taken is not provided, and the photographs are organized thematically rather than chronologically. Earlier photos are credited with references to either archives or the publisher, while later pictures are mostly credited with the name of individual photographers.

Zhejiang Renmin Chubanshe and Zhongguo Dier Lishi Danganguan. Sui yue Chang Jiang = Historical view of the Changjiang River 歲月长江. Hangzhou: Zhejiang Renmin Chubanshe, 2000.