Download or read book The Making of Song Dynasty History written by Charles Hartman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-08 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revisionist analysis of the major sources for Song history, explaining their master narrative as the product of political tension.
Download or read book The Making of Song Dynasty History written by Charles Hartman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-08 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revisionist analysis of the major sources for Song history, explaining their master narrative as the product of political tension.
Download or read book Structures of Governance in Song Dynasty China 960 1279 CE written by Charles Hartman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-03-31 with total page 467 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Hartman presents an ambitious analysis of the workings of governance in Imperial China centered on the Song Dynasty (960–1279). Here he develops a new model for thinking about the deeper structures of governance in Song and pre-imperial China – the 'technocratic–Confucian continuum' – which challenges the prevailing perception of Confucian political dominance and offers a vehicle for expanding the definition and scope of Song political culture to embrace all its actors. Building on his acclaimed work The Making of Song Dynasty History: Sources and Narratives, 960–1279 CE (2021), this richly detailed exploration of the Song court is of significance beyond the immediate period of study both in rethinking the nature of monarchy in China and in examining the constructive possibility of political dissent.
Download or read book The Reunification of China written by Peter Lorge and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-26 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking work examining the military and political events that shaped the Song dynasty (960-1279) in China. Peter Lorge examines the centrality of warfare and politics in the struggle for internal and external power, as well as the influence of individuals and their relationships in political processes.
Download or read book Structures of Governance in Song Dynasty China 960 1279 CE written by Charles Hartman and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Hartman presents a groundbreaking revisionist history of the political culture of Imperial China as dominated by a struggle between 'technocratic' and 'Confucian' views of governance. His analysis of the workings of Song governance both complements and extends his acclaimed previous work 'The Making of Song Dynasty History'.
Download or read book Ten States Five Dynasties One Great Emperor written by Hung Hing Ming and published by Algora Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawn from Chinese classics of history, Hung Hing Ming's biographies introduce China's most emblematic historical figures and the cultural attributes fostered by China's ancient chronicles. This book is about one of the greatest emperors in Chinese history, Zhao Kuang Yin, founder of the Song Dynasty (960–1279). He is honored for having unified China in the extremely chaotic period of 'Five Dynasties and Ten States'. This enjoyable book introduces more of China's heroes and villains, highlighting a modest man yet a great emperor who brought peace and stability to the realm and saved the people from great suffering. Interwoven into the narrative of battles fought and alliances forged or flouted, we find examples of good leadership and bad, hot-headed fighters and disciplined warriors, and lessons on how to assess — and win — people's loyalty.
Download or read book Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China written by Patricia Buckley Ebrey and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-05-11 with total page 675 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Huizong was an exceptional emperor who lived through momentous times. A man of many talents, he wrote poetry and created his own distinctive calligraphy style; collected paintings, calligraphies, and antiquities on a large scale; promoted Daoism; and involved himself in the training of court artists, the layout of gardens, and reforms of music and medicine. The quarter century when Huizong ruled is just as fascinating. The greatly enlarged scholar-official class had come into its own but was deeply divided by factional strife. The long struggle between the Chinese state and its northern neighbors entered a new phase when Song proved unable to defend itself against the newly emergent Jurchen state of Jin. Huizong and thousands of members of his family and court were taken captive, and the Song dynasty had to recreate itself in the South.
Download or read book Hong Mai s Record of the Listener and Its Song Dynasty Context written by Alister David Inglis and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2006-08-17 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2007 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Song dynasty historian Hong Mai (1123–1202) spent a lifetime on a collection of supernatural accounts, contemporary incidents, poems, and riddles, among other genres, which he entitled Record of the Listener (Yijian zhi). His informants included a wide range of his contemporaries, from scholar-officials to concubines, Buddhist monks, and soldiers, who helped Hong Mai leave one of the most vivid portraits of life and the different classes in China during this period. Originally comprising a massive 420 chapters, only a fraction survived the Mongol ravaging of China in the thirteenth century. The present volume is the first book-length consideration of this important text, which has been an ongoing source of literary and social history. Alister D. Inglis explores fundamental questions surrounding the work and its making, such as theme, genre, authorial intent, the veracity of the accounts, and their circulation in both oral and written form. In addition to a brief outline of Hong Mai's life that incorporates Hong's autobiographical anecdotes, the book includes many intriguing stories translated into English for the first time, including Hong's legendary thirty-one prefaces. Record of the Listener fills the gaps left by official Chinese historians who, unlike Hong Mai, did not comment on women's affairs, ghosts and the paranormal, local crime, human sacrifice, little-known locales, and unofficial biographies.
Download or read book Here in China I Dwell written by Zhaoguang Ge and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-08-28 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Here in 'China' I Dwell, Ge Zhaoguang sums up a wealth of research on the evolution of Chinese historical narratives, and suggests that viewing China from its borders is the most helpful and objective view moving forward.
Download or read book The Age of Confucian Rule written by Dieter Kuhn and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-15 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just over a thousand years ago, the Song dynasty emerged as the most advanced civilization on earth. Within two centuries, China was home to nearly half of all humankind. In this concise history, we learn why the inventiveness of this era has been favorably compared with the European Renaissance, which in many ways the Song transformation surpassed. With the chaotic dissolution of the Tang dynasty, the old aristocratic families vanished. A new class of scholar-officials—products of a meritocratic examination system—took up the task of reshaping Chinese tradition by adapting the precepts of Confucianism to a rapidly changing world. Through fiscal reforms, these elites liberalized the economy, eased the tax burden, and put paper money into circulation. Their redesigned capitals buzzed with traders, while the education system offered advancement to talented men of modest means. Their rationalist approach led to inventions in printing, shipbuilding, weaving, ceramics manufacture, mining, and agriculture. With a realist’s eye, they studied the natural world and applied their observations in art and science. And with the souls of diplomats, they chose peace over war with the aggressors on their borders. Yet persistent military threats from these nomadic tribes—which the Chinese scorned as their cultural inferiors—redefined China’s understanding of its place in the world and solidified a sense of what it meant to be Chinese. The Age of Confucian Rule is an essential introduction to this transformative era. “A scholar should congratulate himself that he has been born in such a time” (Zhao Ruyu, 1194).
Download or read book The Song Yuan Ming Transition in Chinese History written by Paul Jakov Smith and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-03-23 with total page 549 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume seeks to study the connections between two well-studied epochs in Chinese history: the mid-imperial era of the Tang and Song (ca. 800-1270) and the late imperial era of the late Ming and Qing (1550-1900). Both eras are seen as periods of explosive change, particularly in economic activity, characterized by the emergence of new forms of social organization and a dramatic expansion in knowledge and culture. The task of establishing links between these two periods has been impeded by a lack of knowledge of the intervening Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). This historiographical "black hole" has artificially interrupted the narrative of Chinese history and bifurcated it into two distinct epochs. This book aims to restore continuity to that historical narrative by filling the gap between mid-imperial and late imperial China. The contributors argue that the Song-Yuan-Ming transition (early twelfth through the late fifteenth century) constitutes a distinct historical period of transition and not one of interruption and devolution. They trace this transition by investigating such subjects as contemporary impressions of the period, the role of the Mongols in intellectual life, the economy of Jiangnan, urban growth, neo-Confucianism and local society, commercial publishing, comic drama, and medical learning.
Download or read book Cross Cultural Trade in World History written by Philip D. Curtin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1984-05-25 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The trade between peoples of differinf cultures, from the ancient world to the commercial revolution.
Download or read book The River the Plain and the State written by Ling Zhang and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-09 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the human-engineered flooding of China's Yellow River, and how it affected the state, environment, and inhabitants of the region.
Download or read book Chinese Architecture and Metaphor written by Jiren Feng and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2012-05-31 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Investigating the historical tradition of Chinese architectural writing from antiquity to the twelfth century, Chinese Architecture and Metaphor reveals significant and fascinating social and cultural phenomena in the most important primary text for the study of the Chinese building tradition. Unlike previous scholarship, which has reviewed this imperially commissioned architectural manual largely as a technical work, this volume considers the Yingzao fashi’s unique literary value and explores the rich cultural implications in and behind its technical content. Utilizing a philological approach, the author pays particular attention to the traditional and contemporary architectural terminology presented in the Yingzao fashi. In examining the semantic meaning of the architectural terms used in the manual, he uncovers a systematic architectural metaphor wherein bracketing elements are likened to flowers, flowering branches, and foliage: Thus pillars with bracketing above are compared to blossoming trees. More importantly, this intriguing imagery was shared by different social groups, in particular craftsmen and literati, and craftsmen themselves employed literary knowledge in naming architectural elements. Relating these phenomena to the unprecedented flourishing of literature, the literati’s greater admiration of technical knowledge, and the higher intellectual capacity of craftsmen during the Song, Architecture and Metaphor demonstrates how the learned and “unlearned” cultures entangled in the construction of architectural knowledge in premodern China. It convincingly shows that technical language served as a faithful carrier of contemporary popular culture and aesthetic concepts. Chinese Architecture and Metaphor demonstrates a high level of engagement with a broad spectrum of sophisticated Chinese sources. It will become a classic work for all students and scholars of East Asian architecture.
Download or read book The Politics of the Past in Early China written by Vincent S. Leung and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-18 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History mattered to the political elite in ancient China. Leung explores why it was so important and to what end.
Download or read book The Rise of West Lake written by Xiaolin Duan and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "West Lake, near scenic Hangzhou on China's east coast, has been a major tourist site since the twelfth century and a model for idealized nature. Visitors boat to its islands, stroll through its gardens, worship in its temples, and celebrate it in poetry and painting. Xiaolin Duan examines the interplay between cultural norms and the natural environment around West Lake during the Song dynasty (960-1279). After the Song lost north China to the Jurchens and the imperial court fled south, a new capital was established at Hangzhou in 1127, making the area the national political and cultural center. Duan shows how leisure activities in, on, and around West Lake influenced visitors' conceptualization of nature and sparked the emergence of the lake as a tourist destination, and how the natural landscape played an active role in shaping social pursuits and cultural constructs. Incorporating evidence from miscellanies, local and temple gazetteers, paintings, maps, poems, and anecdotes, she explores the complexity of the lake as an interactive site where ecological and economic concerns contended and where spiritual pursuits overlapped with aesthetic ones. The book will appeal to readers interested in urban and environmental history, cultural geography, and the sociology of tourism"--
Download or read book China from Empire to Nation State written by Hui Wang and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-14 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This translation of the Introduction to Wang Hui’s Rise of Modern Chinese Thought (2004) makes part of his four-volume masterwork available to English readers for the first time. A leading public intellectual in China, Wang charts the historical currents that have shaped Chinese modernity from the Song Dynasty to the present day, and along the way challenges the West to rethink some of its most basic assumptions about what it means to be modern. China from Empire to Nation-State exposes oversimplifications and distortions implicit in Western critiques of Chinese history, which long held that China was culturally resistant to modernization, only able to join the community of modern nations when the Qing Empire finally collapsed in 1912. Noting that Western ideas have failed to take into account the diversity of Chinese experience, Wang recovers important strains of premodern thought. Chinese thinkers theorized politics in ways that do not line up neatly with political thought in the West—for example, the notion of a “Heavenly Principle” that governed everything from the ordering of the cosmos to the structure of society and rationality itself. Often dismissed as evidence of imperial China’s irredeemably backward culture, many Neo-Confucian concepts reemerged in twentieth-century Chinese political discourse, as thinkers and activists from across the ideological spectrum appealed to ancient precedents and principles in support of their political and cultural agendas. Wang thus enables us to see how many aspects of premodern thought contributed to a distinctly Chinese vision of modernity.
