Download or read book Representations of Childhood and Youth in Early China written by Anne Behnke Kinney and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book in any language to inquire into the emergence of childhood as a topic of significant cultural attention in Han times, as expressed in the intellectual discourse surrounding early Chinese cosmology, medicine, law, statecraft, and dynastic history.
Download or read book The Early Chinese Empires written by Mark Edward Lewis and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-30 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 221 BC, the First Emperor of Qin unified the lands that would become the heart of a Chinese empire. Though forged by conquest, this vast domain depended for its political survival on a fundamental reshaping of Chinese culture. With this informative book, we are present at the creation of an ancient imperial order whose major features would endure for two millennia. The Qin and Han constitute the “classical period” of Chinese history—a role played by the Greeks and Romans in the West. Mark Edward Lewis highlights the key challenges faced by the court officials and scholars who set about governing an empire of such scale and diversity of peoples. He traces the drastic measures taken to transcend, without eliminating, these regional differences: the invention of the emperor as the divine embodiment of the state; the establishment of a common script for communication and a state-sponsored canon for the propagation of Confucian ideals; the flourishing of the great families, whose domination of local society rested on wealth, landholding, and elaborate kinship structures; the demilitarization of the interior; and the impact of non-Chinese warrior-nomads in setting the boundaries of an emerging Chinese identity. The first of a six-volume series on the history of imperial China, The Early Chinese Empires illuminates many formative events in China’s long history of imperialism—events whose residual influence can still be discerned today.
Download or read book Childhood in World History written by Peter N Stearns and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-05-02 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filling a gap in a field with very few teaching books available, Childhood in World History provides a much-needed historical overview. Studying childhood historically greatly advances our understanding of what childhood is about, and a world history focus permits broad questions to be asked. Peter N. Stearns, an esteemed name in the field, focuses on childhood in several ways: childhood across change – the shift from hunting and gathering to an agricultural society, the impact of civilization, and the emergence of major religions new and old debates about the distinctive features of Western childhood, including child labour the emergence of a modern, industrial pattern of childhood in the West, Japan and communist societies, focusing on education and economic independence globalization and the spread of child-centred consumerism. Highlighting the gains, the divisions, and the losses for children across the millennia, this fascinating book will appeal to students across the board, and will prove an excellent teaching resource.
Download or read book The Construction of Space in Early China written by Mark Edward Lewis and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the formation of the Chinese empire through its reorganization and reinterpretation of its basic spatial units: the human body, the household, the city, the region, and the world. The central theme of the book is the way all these forms of ordered space were reshaped by the project of unification and how, at the same time, that unification was constrained and limited by the necessary survival of the units on which it was based. Consequently, as Mark Edward Lewis shows, each level of spatial organization could achieve order and meaning only within an encompassing, superior whole: the body within the household, the household within the lineage and state, the city within the region, and the region within the world empire, while each level still contained within itself the smaller units from which it was formed. The unity that was the empire's highest goal avoided collapse back into the original chaos of nondistinction only by preserving within itself the very divisions on the basis of family or region that it claimed to transcend.
Download or read book Women in Early Imperial China written by Bret Hinsch and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2010-08-16 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After a long spell of chaos, the Qin and Han dynasties (221 BCE–220 CE) saw the unification of the Chinese Empire under a single ruler, government, and code of law. During this era, changing social and political institutions affected the ways people conceived of womanhood. New ideals were promulgated, and women's lives gradually altered to conform to them. And under the new political system, the rulers' consorts and their families obtained powerful roles that allowed women unprecedented influence in the highest level of government. Recognized as the leading work in the field, this introductory survey offers the first sustained history of women in the early imperial era. Now in a revised edition that incorporates the latest scholarship and theoretical approaches, the book draws on extensive primary and secondary sources in Chinese and Japanese to paint a remarkably detailed picture of the distant past. Bret Hinsch's introductory chapters orient the nonspecialist to early imperial Chinese society; subsequent chapters discuss women's roles from the multiple perspectives of kinship, wealth and work, law, government, learning, ritual, and cosmology. An enhanced array of line drawings, a Chinese-character glossary, and extensive notes and bibliography enhance the author's discussion. Historians and students of gender and early China alike will find this book an invaluable overview.
Download or read book The Huainanzi and Textual Production in Early China written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-04-03 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Han dynasty Huainanzi is a compendium of knowledge covering every subject from self-cultivation, astronomy, and calendrics, to the arts of government. This edited volume follows a multi-disciplinary approach to explore how and why the Huainanzi was produced and how we should interpret the work. The volume should be of interest to scholars of early China, as well as scholars of textual production in other periods of Chinese history and in other cultures. With contributions by Anne Behnke Kinney, Martin Kern, John S. Major, Andrew Meyer, Judson B. Murray, Michael Nylan, David W. Pankenier, Michael Puett, Sarah A. Queen, Harold D. Roth, and Griet Vankeerberghen.
Download or read book Exemplary Women of Early China written by and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-28 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In early China, was it correct for a woman to disobey her father, contradict her husband, or shape the public policy of a son who ruled over a dynasty or state? According to the Lienü zhuan, or Categorized Biographies of Women, it was not only appropriate but necessary for women to step in with wise counsel when fathers, husbands, or rulers strayed from the path of virtue. Compiled toward the end of the Former Han dynasty (202 BCE-9 CE) by Liu Xiang (79-8 BCE), the Lienü zhuan is the earliest extant book in the Chinese tradition solely devoted to the education of women. Far from providing a unified vision of women's roles, the text promotes a diverse and sometimes contradictory range of practices. At one extreme are exemplars resorting to suicide and self-mutilation as a means to preserve chastity and ritual orthodoxy. At the other are bold and outspoken women whose rhetorical mastery helps correct erring rulers, sons, and husbands. The text provides a fascinating overview of the representation of women's roles in early legends, formal speeches on statecraft, and highly fictionalized historical accounts during this foundational period of Chinese history. Over time, the biographies of women became a regular feature of dynastic and local histories and a vehicle for expressing and transmitting concerns about women's social, political, and domestic roles. The Lienü zhuan is also rich in information about the daily life, rituals, and domestic concerns of early China. Inspired by its accounts, artists across the millennia have depicted its stories on screens, paintings, lacquer ware, murals, and stone relief sculpture, extending its reach to literate and illiterate audiences alike.
Download or read book Ban Gu s History of Early China written by and published by Cambria Press. This book was released on with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Children in Chinese Art written by Ann Barrott Wicks and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2002-02-28 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Depictions of children have had a prominent place in Chinese art since the Song period (960-1279). Yet one would be hard pressed to find any significant discussion of children in art in the historical documents of imperial China or contemporary scholarship on Chinese art. Children in Chinese Art brings to the forefront themes and motifs that have crossed social boundaries for centuries but have been overlooked in scholarly treatises. In this volume, experts in the fields of art, religion, literature, and history introduce and elucidate many of the issues surrounding child imagery in China, including its use for didactic reinforcement of social values as well as the amuletic function of these works. The introduction provides a thought-provoking overview of the history of depictions of children, exploring both stylistic development and the emergence of specific themes. In an insightful essay, China specialists combine expertise in literature and painting to propose that the focus on children in both genres during the Song is an indication of a truly humane society. Skillful use of visual and textual sources from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) period explains children's games and the meaning of depictions of boys at play. Gender issues are examined in an intriguing look at mothers and children in woodblock illustrations to Ming versions of the classical text Lie ni juan. Depictions of the childhood of saints and sages from murals and commemorative tablets in ancient temples are considered. The volume concludes with two highly original essays on child protectors and destroyers in Chinese folk religion and family portraits and their scarcity in China before the nineteenth century. Contributors: Ellen B. Avril, Catherine Barnhart, Richard Barnhart, Terese Tse Bartholomew, Julia K. Murray, Ann Waltner, Ann Barrott Wicks.
Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Early Chinese History written by Paul R. Goldin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 726 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of early China has been radically transformed over the past fifty years by archaeological discoveries, including both textual and non-textual artefacts. Excavations of settlements and tombs have demonstrated that most people did not lead their lives in accordance with ritual canons, while previously unknown documents have shown that most received histories were written retrospectively by victors and present a correspondingly anachronistic perspective. This handbook provides an authoritative survey of the major periods of Chinese history from the Neolithic era to the fall of the Latter Han Empire and the end of antiquity (AD 220). It is the first volume to include not only a comprehensive review of political history but also detailed treatments of topics that transcend particular historical periods, such as: Warfare and political thought Cities and agriculture Language and art Medicine and mathematics Providing a detailed analysis of the most up-to-date research by leading scholars in the field of early Chinese history, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Chinese history, Asian archaeology, and Chinese studies in general.
Download or read book The Politics of Mourning in Early China written by Miranda Brown and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Politics of Mourning in Early China reevaluates the longstanding assumptions about early imperial political culture. According to most explanations, filial piety served as the linchpin of the social and political order, as all political relations were a seamless extension of the relationship between father and son—a relationship that was hierarchical, paternalistic, and personal. Offering a new perspective on the mourning practices and funerary monuments of the Han dynasty, Miranda Brown asks whether the early imperial elite did in fact imagine political participation solely along the lines of the father-son relationship or whether there were alternative visions of political association. The early imperial elite held remarkably varied and contradictory beliefs about political life, and they had multiple templates and changing scripts for political action. This book documents and explains such diversity and variation and shows that the Han dynasty practice of mourning expressed many visions of political life, visions that left lasting legacies.
Download or read book Early China written by Li Feng and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-14 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Early China' refers to the period from the beginning of human history in China to the end of the Han Dynasty in AD 220. The roots of modern Chinese society and culture are all to be found in this formative period of Chinese civilization. Li Feng's new critical interpretation draws on the most recent scholarship and archaeological discoveries from the past thirty years. This fluent and engaging overview of early Chinese civilization explores key topics including the origins of the written language, the rise of the state, the Shang and Zhou religions, bureaucracy, law and governance, the evolving nature of war, the creation of empire, the changing image of art, and the philosophical search for social order. Beautifully illustrated with a wide range of new images, this book is essential reading for all those wanting to know more about the foundations of Chinese history and civilization.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the History of Youth Culture written by James Marten and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Youth culture is not an invention of 20th-century movies and television; youth have been forming their own cultures from the moment they were given space to invent their own ways of relating to one another and to their parents and communities. Taking a global approach and beginning in early modern Europe, the essays in the Oxford Handbook of the History of Youth Culture provide broadly contextualized case studies of the ways in which the meanings and expressions of both "youth" and "culture" have evolved through time and space. The authors show that youth culture has been shaped by geography, ethnicity, class, gender, faith, technology, and myriad other factors. Examining subjects ranging from monastic schools to online communities, from enslaved youth in the Caribbean to Indigenous students at government sanctioned boarding schools, from youthful entrepreneurs to youthful activists, from war to sexuality, and from art to literature, the essays show that there have been many youth cultures. Throughout, authors emphasize the ways in which the idea of youth culture could become contested terrain-between youth and their families, their communities, and the culture at large-as well as the importance of youth agency in carving out separate lives. Among the tensions explored are the struggle between control and independence, as well as the explicit and implicit differences between male and female constructions of youth culture"--
Download or read book Music Cosmology and the Politics of Harmony in Early China written by Erica Fox Brindley and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the religious, political, and cultural significance attributed to music in early China. In early China, conceptions of music became important culturally and politically. This fascinating book examines a wide range of texts and discourse on music during this period (ca. 500100 BCE) in light of the rise of religious, protoscientific beliefs on the intrinsic harmony of the cosmos. By tracking how music began to take on cosmic and religious significance, Erica Fox Brindley shows how music was used as a tool for such enterprises as state unification and cultural imperialism. She also outlines how musical discourse accompanied the growth of an explicit psychology of the emotions, served as a fundamental medium for spiritual attunement with the cosmos, and was thought to have utility and potency in medicine. While discussions of music in state ritual or as an aesthetic and cultural practice abound, this book is unique in linking music to religious belief and demonstrating its convergences with key religious, political, and intellectual transformations in early China.
Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Imperial Chinese History written by Victor Cunrui Xiong and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-17 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The resurgence of modern China has generated much interest, not only in the country’s present day activities, but also in its long history. As the only uninterrupted ancient civilization still alive today, the study of China’s past promises to offer invaluable insights into understanding contemporary China. Providing coverage of the entire Imperial Era (221 BCE–1912 CE), this handbook takes a chronological approach. It includes comprehensive analysis of all major periods, from the powerful Han empire which rivalled Rome, and the crucial transformative period of the Five Dynasties, to the prosperous Ming era and the later dominance of the non-Han peoples. With contributions from a team of international authors, key themes include: Political events and leadership Religion and philosophy Cultural and literary achievements Legal, economic, and military institutions This book transcends the traditional boundaries of historiography, giving special attention to the role of archaeology. As such, the Routledge Handbook of Imperial Chinese History is an indispensable reference work for students and scholars of Chinese, Asian, and World History.
Download or read book The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies written by Daniel Thomas Cook and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2020-04-20 with total page 4001 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies navigates our understanding of the historical, political, social and cultural dimensions of childhood. Transdisciplinary and transnational in content and scope, the Encyclopedia both reflects and enables the wide range of approaches, fields and understandings that have been brought to bear on the ever-transforming problem of the "child" over the last four decades This four-volume encyclopedia covers a wide range of themes and topics, including: Social Constructions of Childhood Children’s Rights Politics/Representations/Geographies Child-specific Research Methods Histories of Childhood/Transnational Childhoods Sociology/Anthropology of Childhood Theories and Theorists Key Concepts This interdisciplinary encyclopedia will be of interest to students and researchers in: Childhood Studies Sociology/Anthropology Psychology/Education Social Welfare Cultural Studies/Gender Studies/Disabilty Studies
Download or read book Women and the Literary World in Early Modern China 1580 1700 written by Daria Berg and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-24 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the works of key women writers within their cultural, artistic and socio-political contexts, this book considers changes in the perception of women in early modern China. The sixteenth century brought rapid developments in technology, commerce and the publishing industry that saw women emerging in new roles as both consumers and producers of culture. This book examines the place of women in the cultural elite and in society more generally, reconstructing examples of particular women’s personal experiences, and retracing the changing roles of women from the late Ming to the early Qing era (1580-1700). Providing rich detail of exceptionally fine, interesting and engaging literary works, this book opens fascinating new windows onto the lives, dreams, nightmares, anxieties and desires of the authors and the world out of which they emerged.
