Download or read book Voyager from Xanadu written by Morris Rossabi and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2010-02-10 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Voyager from Xanadu, a distinguished historian tells the little-known story of the life and travels of the first person from China ever to reach Europe. Portraying one of the most remarkable early encounters between East and West, Morris Rossabi also brings to life the intriguing and turbulent era of the Mongol Empire and the last Crusades. Toward the end of the thirteenth century, at about the time Marco Polo arrived in China, a Christian monk, Rabban Sauma, left it, embarking on a journey that would prove more momentous than he could have dreamed. What began as a religious pilgrimage to the Middle East (supported by the Mongol Emperor, Khubilai Khan) ultimately became an extraordinary diplomatic mission. After several years' eventful stay in Persia, Sauma was dispatched to Europe by Persia's Mongol ruler, the Ilkhan. The monk's task: to persuade the Pope and the Kings of France and England to ally with the Ilkhan and launch a Crusade against their common enemy, the Muslim dynasty that controlled the Holy Land. The mission was a striking early instance of geopolitics on a modern scale. Voyager from Xanadu vividly conjures up the places Sauma visited as he crossed two continents, meeting with monarchs and prelates and seeing everything from a battle to a volcanic eruption to countless grisly relics of long-dead saints. It provides a clear and penetrating analysis of the volatile international situation of the era and its impact on Sauma's embassy. And, of course, Voyager from Xanadu traces the life of an exceptional man, from his comfortable youth, through his unique adventures, to his death far from the land of his birth.

Download or read book Bibliotheca Arcana Seu Catalogus Librorum Penetralium Being Brief Notices of Books that Have Been Secretly Printed Prohibited by Law Seized Anathematised Burnt Or Bowdlerised written by Speculator morum and published by . This book was released on 1885 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Catena Librorum Tacendorum written by Henry Spencer Ashbee and published by . This book was released on 1885 with total page 676 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Adventures of a King s Page written by Charles White and published by . This book was released on 1829 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The History Of The Rod written by William M. Cooper and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-05-22 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 2005. The line between pain and pleasure is as thin as the tail of a whip, and this classic work is the definitive history of flagellation through the ages. As it shows, flagellation is much more than a punishment - it is also intimately tied to discipline and eroticism, has a romantic and even comic side, and has also been used for medical purposes. No one is above the bite of the birch or rod - convent nuns were chastised severely, queens have been flogged, and even favourites of the sultan have had to endure the whip in the great seraglios. The author deals in great detail with whipping in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, the favourite parts of the body for whipping, flagellation and discipline in monasteries and convents, whipping in prisons, the rod in Russia, flagellation in America, whipping in Europe and the Far East, the flogging of slaves, military flogging, school punishments and the birch in the boudoir, all enlivened with colourful anecdotes. There is a chapter on the instruments of whipping, a selection of ribald and erotic poems on whipping, a section on eccentric forms of whipping such as that practised on prostitutes, many detailed line drawings, descriptive accounts and a full index. The work shows the fundamental place whipping has always played in human history, both publicly and in private, and continues to play today.

Download or read book A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus and Its Connection with the Mystic Theology of the Ancients written by Richard Payne Knight and published by . This book was released on 1865 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Modern China and the West written by Hsiao-yen PENG and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-04-30 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Modern China and the West: Translation and Cultural Mediation, the authors investigate the significant role translation plays in the act of cultural mediation. They pay attention to transnational organizations that bring about cross-cultural interactions as well as regulating authorities, in the form of both nation-states and ideologies, which dictate what, and even how, to translate. Under such circumstances, is there room for individual translators or mediators to exercise their free will? To what extent are they allowed to do so? The authors see translation as a "shaping force." While intending to shape, or reshape, certain concepts through the translating act, translators and cultural actors need to negotiate among multifarious institutional powers that coexist, including traditional and foreign. Contributors include: Françoise Kreissler, Angel Pino, Shan Te-hsing, Nicolai Volland, Joyce C. H. Liu, Huang Ko-wu, Isabelle Rabut, Xiaomei Chen, Zhang Yinde, Peng Hsiao-yen, Sebastian Hsien-hao Liao, and Pin-chia Feng.

Download or read book Sino Asiatica written by Gungwu Wang and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book In the Service of the Khan written by Igor de Rachewiltz and published by Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. This book was released on 1993 with total page 862 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Merry Order of St Bridget written by James Glass Bertram and published by . This book was released on 1857 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book China s Modernisation written by Kurt Werner Radtke and published by Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH. This book was released on 1993 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book has been prepared to mark the retirement of Professor dr. E. Zèurcher from the Sinologisch Instituut, Leiden"-- Pref.

Download or read book Treasures from Shanghai written by Jessica Rawson and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In contrast to the West, where diamonds, gold and silver have usually been highly valued, in China bronzes and jades were chosen early on for the societyâe(tm)s most valued artefacts, and retained this very high status over millennia. Bronze and jades were used in China for ritual and burial, and were thus associated with the sacred worlds of the ancestors and spirits. In later China, these precious relics of the past were collected by rulers and scholars as routes to understanding a distant golden age. These ancient objects, some dating from the neolithic period, set the artistic standard for all time; this is where Chinese art begins. Chinese bronzes, in particular, are one of the worldâe(tm)s major art forms. Few if any other ancient cultures achieved the artistic excellence and technical virtuosity in bronze attained in China. Using a unique casting method involving multiple ceramic section moulds, the Chinese cast vessels, weapons and ornaments of great beauty and elegance. Jade, too, is central to Chinaâe(tm)s culture. This tough translucent stone has been worked to produce the most prized ornaments and ceremonial implements from the Neolithic period to the present day. The jades featured in this catalogue, carved by some of the groups of ancient inhabitants in the Shanghai area. They include wonderful, decorated ritual jades, cong, bi discs, weapons and ornaments. This catalogue not only celebrates an important collection, but highlights the extraordinary skills of the craftsmen of very early cultures, placing the objects in their historical and archaeological context. Here are exquisite objects made for the ancient Chinese elite and subsequently revered by emperors and collectors alike.

Download or read book The Ornament on Chinese Silver of the Tang Dynasty AD 618 906 written by Jessica Rawson and published by British Museum Press. This book was released on 1982 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Chinese Jade Throughout the Ages written by Jessica Rawson and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Face to Face with China written by Harold Burgoyne Rattenbury and published by . This book was released on 1945 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Economic Growth in Prewar China written by Thomas G. Rawski and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A landmark study that will stimulate a major rethinking of the character of Chinese society in the first half of the twentieth century. It challenges persuasively so much of the conventional wisdom concerning the nature of China's economy prior to 1949 that it will almost certainly become one of the most widely quoted studies of Chinese economic growth in the twentieth century."--Nicholas R. Lardy, University of Washington "Rawski's book offers the first comprehensive synthesis of early twentieth-century Chinese history based on original research from an economist's point of view. It directly and aggressively challenges major propositions espoused by leading historians and provides alternatives to these standard interpretations."--Sherman Cochran, Cornell University

Download or read book Index to the Secret History of the Mongols written by Igor de Rachewiltz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 1997 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: