Download or read book Borders of Chinese Civilization written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVD. R. Howland explores China & rsquo;s representations of Japan in the changing world of the late nineteenth century and, in so doing, examines the cultural and social borders between the two neighbors. Looking at Chinese accounts of Japan written during the 1870s and 1880s, he undertakes an unprecedented analysis of the main genres the Chinese used to portray Japan & mdash;the travel diary, poetry, and the geographical treatise. In his discussion of the practice of & ldquo;brushtalk, & rdquo; in which Chinese scholars communicated with the Japanese by exchanging ideographs, Howland further shows how the Chinese viewed the communication of their language and its dominant modes & mdash;history and poetry & mdash;as the textual and cultural basis of a shared civilization between the two societies. With Japan & rsquo;s decision in the 1870s to modernize and westernize, China & rsquo;s relationship with Japan underwent a crucial change & mdash;one that resulted in its decisive separation from Chinese civilization and, according to Howland, a destabilization of China & rsquo;s worldview. His examination of the ways in which Chinese perceptions of Japan altered in the 1880s reveals the crucial choice faced by the Chinese of whether to interact with Japan as & ldquo;kin, & rdquo; based on geographical proximity and the existence of common cultural threads, or as a & ldquo;barbarian, & rdquo; an alien force molded by European influence. By probing China & rsquo;s poetic and expository modes of portraying Japan, Borders of Chinese Civilization exposes the changing world of the nineteenth century and China & rsquo;s comprehension of it. This broadly appealing work will engage scholars in the fields of Asian studies, Chinese literature, history, and geography, as well as those interested in theoretical reflections on travel or modernism. /div

Download or read book Borders of Chinese Civilization written by Douglas Howland and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1996-04-25 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: D. R. Howland explores China’s representations of Japan in the changing world of the late nineteenth century and, in so doing, examines the cultural and social borders between the two neighbors. Looking at Chinese accounts of Japan written during the 1870s and 1880s, he undertakes an unprecedented analysis of the main genres the Chinese used to portray Japan—the travel diary, poetry, and the geographical treatise. In his discussion of the practice of “brushtalk,” in which Chinese scholars communicated with the Japanese by exchanging ideographs, Howland further shows how the Chinese viewed the communication of their language and its dominant modes—history and poetry—as the textual and cultural basis of a shared civilization between the two societies. With Japan’s decision in the 1870s to modernize and westernize, China’s relationship with Japan underwent a crucial change—one that resulted in its decisive separation from Chinese civilization and, according to Howland, a destabilization of China’s worldview. His examination of the ways in which Chinese perceptions of Japan altered in the 1880s reveals the crucial choice faced by the Chinese of whether to interact with Japan as “kin,” based on geographical proximity and the existence of common cultural threads, or as a “barbarian,” an alien force molded by European influence. By probing China’s poetic and expository modes of portraying Japan, Borders of Chinese Civilization exposes the changing world of the nineteenth century and China’s comprehension of it. This broadly appealing work will engage scholars in the fields of Asian studies, Chinese literature, history, and geography, as well as those interested in theoretical reflections on travel or modernism.

Download or read book Discover Ancient China written by Neil D. Bramwell and published by Enslow Publishing, LLC. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confucius, the Great Wall, silk, oracle bones, writing, and paper are among the topics explored here. This book starts with Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi's life size terracotta army of soldiers, chariots, and horses. The photographs show the army as it looks today and in the broken disarray of its discovery. The following chapters deal with early development, early dynasties, the unification of China, and the achievements, gifts, and inventions of the ancient Chinese.

Download or read book Crossing the Border written by Li Yang and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2024 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first monograph of its kind in the academic world which comprehensively expounds the new methodology of humanities. The quadruple-evidence method is one which integrates quadruple-evidences to open up new horizon for interpretation of ancient culture in the three-dimensional manner. The first layer of evidence refers to documents passed down from the past; the second layer of evidence refers to local written materials; the third layer of evidence includes oral legends of anthropology and folklore and etiquette in the living folk customs; the fourth layer of evidence refers to those ancient objects and images either unearthed in archaeological excavations or handed down from the past. The book consists of theoretical explorations and their applications in individual cases. While the first part studies the academic evolution, theory and methodological value of the quadruple-evidence method, the second part, in using the method in different cases, explores different historical and cultural phenomena in the history of China, attempting to extend the frontier of the origin of civilization from the approach of mythological study.

Download or read book The Borders of Chinese Architecture written by Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-22 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An internationally acclaimed expert explains why Chinese-style architecture has remained so consistent for two thousand years, no matter where it is built. For the last two millennia, an overwhelming number of Chinese buildings have been elevated on platforms, supported by pillars, and covered by ceramic-tile roofs. Less obvious features, like the brackets connecting the pillars to roof frames, also have been remarkably constant. What makes the shared features more significant, however, is that they are present in Buddhist, Daoist, Confucian, and Islamic milieus; residential, funerary, and garden structures; in Japan, Korea, Mongolia, and elsewhere. How did Chinese-style architecture maintain such standardization for so long, even beyond China’s borders? Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt examines the essential features of Chinese architecture and its global transmission and translation from the predynastic age to the eighteenth century. Across myriad political, social, and cultural contexts within China and throughout East Asia, certain design and construction principles endured. Builders never abandoned perishable wood in favor of more permanent building materials, even though Chinese engineers knew how to make brick and stone structures in the last millennium BCE. Chinese architecture the world over is also distinctive in that it was invariably accomplished by anonymous craftsmen. And Chinese buildings held consistently to the plan of the four-sided enclosure, which both afforded privacy and differentiated sacred interior space from an exterior understood as the sphere of profane activity. Finally, Chinese-style buildings have always and everywhere been organized along straight lines. Taking note of these and other fascinating uniformities, The Borders of Chinese Architecture offers an accessible and authoritative overview of a tradition studiously preserved across time and space.

Download or read book China written by Gisela Lee and published by Teacher Created Materials. This book was released on 2007-01-05 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chinese culture has changed greatly over the years, but the Chinese people still celebrate the great changes in their culture and nation. This appealing book will teach readers about the incredible history of China, the Great Wall, and the various dynasties that ruled, including the Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han, and Ming. Readers will also discover Chinese philosophies that are still practiced today, such as Confucianism and Taoism. The stunning photos, incredible facts, and engaging sidebars work in conjunction with the easy-to-read text, helpful table of contents, and accessible glossary and index to provide readers with a reading experience that is both enjoyable and informative.

Download or read book All Kinds of Everything written by 陳志海 (Warren Chan) and published by Red Publish. This book was released on 2015-10-28 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you know why there have been so many problems in various parts of the world? In furtherance of their colonial interests, British politicians from time to time wrote national borders for other peoples. They did so in the Balkans, in Africa and in the Middle East. They even drew the border between China and India. Such borders were very often not based on the conditions on the ground. This sowed the seeds of future conflicts. Open your eyes and be open-minded, learn history from different perspectives. Hear the other side, reflect on our own position, independent thinking, say no to double standard. What have we learnt from history? The Great Flood of Yahweh killed almost all living things (including the lovely boys and girls in China). Is this not genocide? In the Conquest of Canaan, did Yahweh not instruct his Chosen People to embark on genocide? Are these really consistent with the all-loving Christian God? God must have been very upset by so many people claiming to be Christians but doing evil things in his name. The story of Christianity should have been a love story. I think that Jesus (as told in the Gospels) is really great. I love you. You love me. Love the one who persecutes you. This is of course easier said than done. But if we at least try to practice what Jesus preaches, this world will certainly be more beautiful. Who decides what is orthodoxy and what is heresy? How is such a decision made? Is it correct that orthodoxy is essentially the winner, and heresy the loser, of an argument? Is it correct that, as a matter of history, the outcome of the argument (orthodoxy or heresy) is very often dependent upon which argument is backed by military power? Is it correct that, perhaps ironically, very often orthodoxy started off as a heresy? Is it correct that, in the course of history, yesterday’s heresy may become today’s orthodoxy; and vice versa? Most of the kings who were given the honour of “the great” (e.g. King Alexander the Great) were mass murderers. What should be the correct “universal” value? Muslims could fight defensive wars. They were not supposed to embark on aggression. But did they not march, with weapons of destruction, all the way out from Arabia? Do you know that Martin Luther (the founder of Protestantism) regarded the Jews “as no better than dogs”? Do you know that he said that the Jews “are children of the Devil, condemned to the flames of Hell?” The Americans’ right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness was built upon the native peoples’ loss of their lives, homes and liberties. Do you agree that history is almost invariably written by the winners? Do you know why there have been so many problems in various parts of the world? In furtherance of their colonial interests, British politicians from time to time wrote national borders for other peoples. They did so in the Balkans, in Africa and in the Middle East. They even drew the border between China and India. Such borders were very often not based on the conditions on the ground. This sowed the seeds of future conflicts. The author introduces the influential moments and events in world history. More importantly, he raises questions and pinpoints some crucial facts that we have missed when we learnt history.

Download or read book China written by The Editorial Committee of Chinese Civilization: A Source Book, City University of Hong Kong and published by City University of HK Press. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written with precision and flair by a host of leading academics from Beijing and Hong Kong, this single volume is a welcome addition to the study of world civilizations, a broad yet detailed chronological sweep through time. Every aspect of Chinese civilization is explained, interpreted, contextualized and brought to life with well-balanced commentary and photographic documentation. Published by City University of Hong Kong Press. 香港城市大學出版社出版。

Download or read book The Decline of Ancient Chinese Civilization written by Marty Gitlin and published by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. This book was released on 2016-07-15 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This enlightening book leads readers though the history of ancient China, up to and through its decline, including how power was centralized within the Zhou royal house and aristocratic families that ruled their individual territories. This resource explains the Spring and Autumn periods, as well as Confucius’s influence, and the positive and negative aspects of the Qin Dynasty. Readers will be captivated by the ebb and flow of rulers, the excitement of peasant revolts, and rebellions that ultimately resulted in the fall of ancient China.

Download or read book China written by Robert E. Murowchick and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthropologists, archaeologists, geographers, and historians chronicle the evolution of Chinese culture and history from antiquity to present times

Download or read book Ming China and Vietnam written by Kathlene Baldanza and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Studies of Sino-Viet relations have traditionally focused on Chinese aggression and Vietnamese resistance, or have assumed out-of-date ideas about Sinicization and the tributary system. They have limited themselves to national historical traditions, doing little to reach beyond the border. Ming China and Vietnam, by contrast, relies on sources and viewpoints from both sides of the border, for a truly transnational history of Sino-Viet relations. Kathlene Baldanza offers a detailed examination of geopolitical and cultural relations between Ming China (1368–1644) and Dai Viet, the state that would go on to become Vietnam. She highlights the internal debates and external alliances that characterized their diplomatic and military relations in the pre-modern period, showing especially that Vietnamese patronage of East Asian classical culture posed an ideological threat to Chinese states. Baldanza presents an analysis of seven linked biographies of Chinese and Vietnamese border-crossers whose lives illustrate the entangled histories of those countries.

Download or read book What Is China written by Ge Zhaoguang and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-26 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ge Zhaoguang, an eminent historian of traditional China and a public intellectual, takes on fundamental questions that shape the domestic and international politics of the world’s most populous country and its second largest economy. What Is China? offers an insider’s account that addresses sensitive problems of Chinese identity and shows how modern scholarship about China—whether conducted in China, East Asia, or the West—has attempted to make sense of the country’s shifting territorial boundaries and its diversity of ethnic groups and cultures. Ge considers, for example, the ancient concept of tianxia, or All-Under-Heaven, which assigned supremacy to the imperial court and lesser status to officials, citizens, tributary states, and tribal peoples. Does China’s government still operate with a belief in divine rule of All-Under-Heaven, or has it taken a different view of other actors, inside and outside its current borders? Responding both to Western theories of the nation-state and to Chinese intellectuals eager to promote “national learning,” Ge offers an insightful and erudite account of how China sees its place in the world. As he wrestles with complex historical and cultural forces guiding the inner workings of an often misunderstood nation, Ge also teases out many nuances of China’s encounter with the contemporary world, using China’s past to explain aspects of its present and to provide insight into various paths the nation might follow as the twenty-first century unfolds.

Download or read book The Great Wall of China written by Louise Chipley Slavicek and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This series examines the key consequences of arbitrary border making in world history - past and present. These studies describe arbitrary borders as places where people interact differently from the way they would had the boundary not existed. Analytical, but easy to read, these brief histories will appeal to a broad sweep of readership

Download or read book Ancient China and its Enemies written by Nicola Di Cosmo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-02-25 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relations between Inner Asian nomads and Chinese are a continuous theme throughout Chinese history. By investigating the formation of nomadic cultures, by analyzing the evolution of patterns of interaction along China's frontiers, and by exploring how this interaction was recorded in historiography, this looks at the origins of the cultural and political tensions between these two civilizations through the first millennium BC. The main purpose of the book is to analyze ethnic, cultural, and political frontiers between nomads and Chinese in the historical contexts that led to their formation, and to look at cultural perceptions of 'others' as a function of the same historical process. Based on both archaeological and textual sources, this 2002 book also introduces a new methodological approach to Chinese frontier history, which combines extensive factual data with a careful scrutiny of the motives, methods, and general conception of history that informed the Chinese historian Ssu-ma Ch'ien.

Download or read book Ancient Chinese Warfare written by Ralph D. Sawyer and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of China is a history of warfare. Rarely in its 3,000-year existence has the country not been beset by war, rebellion, or raids. Warfare was a primary source of innovation, social evolution, and material progress in the Legendary Era, Hsia dynasty, and Shang dynasty--indeed, war was the force that formed the first cohesive Chinese empire, setting China on a trajectory of state building and aggressive activity that continues to this day. In Ancient Chinese Warfare, a preeminent expert on Chinese military history uses recently recovered documents and archaeological findings to construct a comprehensive guide to the developing technologies, strategies, and logistics of ancient Chinese militarism. The result is a definitive look at the tools and methods that won wars and shaped culture in ancient China.

Download or read book Re understanding Japan written by Lu Yan and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2004-04-30 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To many Chinese, the rise and expansion of Japanese power during the years between the two Sino-Japanese wars (1895–1945) presented a paradox: With its successful modernization, Japan became a model to be emulated; yet as the country’s imperial ambitions on the continent grew, it posed an ever-increasing threat. Drawing on an extraordinary array of source materials, Lu Yan shows that this attraction to and apprehension of Japan prompted the Chinese to engage in a variety of long-term relationships with the Japanese. Re-understanding Japan examines transnational and transcultural interactions between China and Japan during those five dramatic and tragic decades at the intimate level of personal lives and behavior. At the center of Lu’s inquiry are four diverse yet significant case studies: military strategist Jiang Baili, literary critic and essayist Zhou Zuoren, Guomindang leader Dai Jitao, and romantic poet turned Communist Guo Moruo. In their public and private lives, these influential Chinese formed lasting ties with Japan and the Japanese. While their writings reached the Chinese public through the print mass media and served to enhance popular understanding of Japan and its culture, their activities in political, cultural, and diplomatic affairs paralleledsignificant turns in Sino-Japanese relations. Based on archival documents, personal memoirs, correspondence, interviews, and contemporary literary works, Re-understanding Japan delineates diverse approaches in Chinese efforts to engage Japan in China’s modern reforms.

Download or read book The Genesis of East Asia 221 B C A D 907 written by Charles Holcombe and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2001-06-01 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Genesis of East Asia examines in a comprehensive and novel way the critically formative period when a culturally coherent geopolitical region identifiable as East Asia first took shape. By sifting through an impressive array of both primary material and modern interpretations, Charles Holcombe unravels what “East Asia” means, and why. He brings to bear archaeological, textual, and linguistic evidence to elucidate how the region developed through mutual stimulation and consolidation from its highly plural origins into what we now think of as the nation-states of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Beginning with the Qin dynasty conquest of 221 B.C. which brought large portions of what are now Korea and Vietnam within China’s frontiers, the book goes on to examine the period of intense interaction that followed with the many scattered local tribal cultures then under China’s imperial sway as well as across its borders. Even the distant Japanese islands could not escape being profoundly transformed by developments on the mainland. Eventually, under the looming shadow of the Chinese empire, independent native states and civilizations matured for the first time in both Japan and Korea, and one frontier region, later known as Vietnam, moved toward independence. Exhaustively researched and engagingly written, this study of state formation in East Asia will be required reading for students and scholars of ancient and medieval East Asian history. It will be invaluable as well to anyone interested in the problems of ethno-nationalism in the post-Cold War era.