Download or read book Xun Xu and the Politics of Precision in Third Century Ad China written by Howard L. Goodman and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This biography of the court scholar Xun Xu explores central areas of intellectual life in third-century China - court lyrics, music, metrology, pitch systems, archeology, and historiography. It clarifies the relevant source texts in order to reveal fierce debates. Besides solving technical puzzles about the material details of court rites, the book unfolds factional struggles that developed into scholarly ones. Xun's opponents were major figures like Zhang Hua and Zhi Yu. Xun Xu's overall approach to antiquity and the derivation of truth made appeals to an idealized Zhou for authority. Ultimately, Xun's precision and methods cost him both reputation and court status. The events mark a turning point in which ideals were moving away from such court constructs toward a relatively more philosophical antiquarianism and towards new terms and genres of self-expression."--Publisher's description.

Download or read book Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature vol 3 4 written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-09-18 with total page 1036 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At last here is the long-awaited, first Western-language reference guide focusing exclusively on Chinese literature from ca. 700 B.C.E. to the early seventh century C.E. Alphabetically organized, it contains no less than 1095 entries on major and minor writers, literary forms and "schools," and important Chinese literary terms. In addition to providing authoritative information about each subject, the compilers have taken meticulous care to include detailed, up-to-date bibliographies and source information. The reader will find it a treasure-trove of historical accounts, especially when browsing through the biographies of authors. Indispensable for scholars and students of pre-modern Chinese literature, history, and thought. Part Three contains Xia - Y. Part Four contains the Z and an extensive index to the four volumes.

Download or read book World in the Balance The Historic Quest for an Absolute System of Measurement written by Robert P. Crease and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-10-24 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Shows that the story of metrology . . . can in the right hands make for a riveting read.”—The Economist Millions of transactions each day depend on a reliable network of weights and measures. But achieving such a network was anything but easy, as Robert P. Crease, physicist and philosopher, demonstrates in this endlessly fascinating, always entertaining look at just how this international system evolved. From the link between musical pitch and distance in the dynasties of ancient China and the use of figurines to measure gold in West Africa to the creation of the French metric and British imperial systems, Crease takes readers along on one of history’s greatest philosophical and scientific adventures.

Download or read book Lutes and Marginality in Pre Modern China written by Ingrid Maren Furniss and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-07-23 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lutes and Marginality in Pre-Modern China traces the complex history of lutes as they moved from the far west into China, and how these instruments became linked to various forms of social, cultural, ethnic, and religious marginality within and at China’s borders. The book argues that the lute, a musical instrument that likely originated in the Near East or Central Asia, became a highly charged object replete with associations of ethnic and political identity, social status, and gender in China across the third to seventeenth centuries, and as such, offers a crucial vehicle for understanding interactions between the Chinese center and periphery. Using a richly interdisciplinary perspective that brings together music history, performance studies, archaeology, and art history, the author draws together the visual evidence for the history of Chinese lutes and analyzes the political and cultural dimensions of their depictions in art. In exploring the lute’s reception across time and space, this book illuminates the shifting relationships between China and cultures along its frontier, as well as the dynamics of gender and social status within China’s center. Comprehensive in scope, Lutes and Marginality in Pre-Modern China offers new insights for scholars of pre-modern China, art history, archaeology, music history, ethnomusicology, and Silk Road and frontier studies.

Download or read book Problems of Han Administration written by Michael Loewe and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-05-18 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Loewe calls on literary and material evidence to examine three problems that arose in administering China’s early empires. Religious rites due to an emperor’s predecessors must both pay the correct services to his ancestors and demonstrate his right to succeed to the throne. In practical terms, tax collectors, merchants, farmers and townsmen required the establishment of a standard set of weights and measures that was universally operative and which they could trust. Those who saw reason to criticise the decisions taken by the emperor and his immediate advisors, whether on grounds of moral principles or political expediency, needed opportunities and the means of expressing their views, whether as remonstrants to the throne, by withdrawal from public life or as authors of private writings.

Download or read book Rising Sons The China s Imperial Succession The Art Of War written by Ian Huen and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2021-12-30 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rising Sons: China's Imperial Succession & The Art of War recollects 2,000 years of China's history by examining how some of its most representative imperial rulers seized power by applying tactics and strategies from Sun Tzu's The Art of War. This volume brings together tales of the nine princes of the Qin to Qing dynasties who rose to power through their cunning wit and prowess at psychological warfare. Brimming in equal measure with narrative interest and analytical insight, this book is as much a page turner about human greed, ambition and its capacity for cruelty as it is a treatise on power dynamics and court politics.

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 Vanishing into Things written by Barry Allen and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-07 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vanishing into Things explores the concept of knowledge in Chinese thought over two millennia, from Confucius to Wang Yangming (ca. 1500 CE), and compares the different philosophical imperatives that have driven Chinese and Western thought. Challenging the hyperspecialized epistemology of modern philosophy in the West, Barry Allen urges his readers toward an ethical appreciation of why knowledge is worth pursuing. Western philosophers have long maintained that true knowledge is the best knowledge. Chinese thinkers, by contrast, have emphasized not the essence of knowing but the purpose. Ideas of truth play no part in their understanding of what the best knowledge is: knowledge is not deduced from principles or reducible to a theory. Rather, in Chinese tradition knowledge is expressed through wu wei, literally “not doing”—a response to circumstances that is at once effortless and effective. This type of knowledge perceives the evolution of circumstances from an early point, when its course can still be changed, provided one has the wisdom to grasp the opportunity. Allen guides readers through the major Confucian and Daoist thinkers including Kongzi, Mengzi, Xunzi, Laozi, and Zhuangzi, examining their influence on medieval Neoconfucianism and Chan (Zen) Buddhism, as well as the theme of knowledge in China’s art of war literature. The sophisticated and consistent concept of knowledge elucidated here will be of relevance to contemporary Western and Eastern philosophers alike.

Download or read book Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature vol I written by David R. Knechtges and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-09-10 with total page 802 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The long-awaited, first Western-language reference guide, this work offers a wealth of information on writers, genres, literary schools and terms of the Chinese literary tradition from earliest times to the seventh century C.E.

Download or read book Monographs in Tang Official Historiography written by Daniel Patrick Morgan and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-09-19 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the role of medieval authors in writing the history of ancient science. It features essays that explore the content, structure, and ideas behind technical writings on medieval Chinese state history. In particular, it looks at the Ten Treatises of the current History of Sui, which provide insights into the writing on the history of such fields as astronomy, astrology, omenology, economics, law, geography, metrology, and library science. Three treatises are known to have been written by Li Chunfeng, one of the most important mathematicians, astronomers, and astrologers in Chinese history. The book not only opens a new window on the figure of Li Chunfeng by exploring what his writings as a historian of science tell us about him as a scientist and vice versa, it also discusses how and on what basis the individual treatises were written. The essays address such themes as (1) the recycling of sources and the question of reliability and objectivity in premodern history-writing; (2) the tug of war between conservatism and innovation; (3) the imposition of the author’s voice, worldview, and personal and professional history in writing a history of a field of technical expertise in a state history; (4) the degree to which modern historians are compelled to speak to their own milieu and ideological beliefs.

Download or read book Entombed Epigraphy and Commemorative Culture in Early Medieval China written by Timothy M. Davis and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-11-09 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Entombed Epigraphy and Commemorative Culture Timothy M. Davis presents a history of early muzhiming—the most versatile and persistent commemorative form employed in the elite burials of pre-modern China. While previous scholars have largely overlooked the contemporary religious, social, and cultural functions of these epigraphic objects, this study directly addresses these areas of concern, answering such basic questions as: Why were muzhiming buried in tombs? What distinguishes commemorative biography from dynastic history biography? And why did muzhiming develop into an essential commemorative genre esteemed by the upper classes? Furthermore, this study reveals how aspiring families used muzhiming to satisfy their obligations to deceased ancestors, establish a multi-generational sense of corporate identity, and strengthen their claims to elite status.

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Medieval China written by Victor Cunrui Xiong and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-04-06 with total page 1007 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The crucial period of Chinese history, 168-979, falls naturally into contrasting phases. The first phase, also known as that of 'early medieval China,' is an age of political decentralization. Following the breakup of the Han empire, China was plunged into civil war and fragmentation and stayed divided for nearly four centuries. The second phase started in 589, during the Sui dynasty, when China was once again brought under a single government. Under the Sui, the bureaucracy was revitalized, the military strengthened, and the taxation system reformed. The fall of the Sui in 618 gave way to the even stronger Tang dynasty, which represents an apogee of traditional Chinese civilization. Inheriting all the great institutions developed under the Sui, the Tang made great achievements in poetry, painting, music, and architecture. The An Lushan rebellion, which also took place during Tang rule, brought about far-reaching changes in the socioeconomic, political, and military arenas. What transpired in the second half of the Tang and the ensuing Five Dynasties provided the foundation for the next age of late imperial China. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Medieval China contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1000 cross-referenced entries on historical figure. It expands on existing thematic entries, and adds a number of new ones with substantial content, including those on nobility, art, architecture, archaeology, economy, agriculture, money, population, cities, literature, historiography, military, religion, Persia, India, Japan, Korea, Arabs, and Byzantium, among others. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about medieval China.

Download or read book Women in Early Medieval China written by Bret Hinsch and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-10-05 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This important study provides the only comprehensive survey of Chinese women during the early medieval period of disunion, which lasted from the fall of the Eastern Han dynasty in 220 AD to the reunification of China by the Sui dynasty in 581 AD, also known as the Six Dynasties. Bret Hinsch offers rich descriptions of the most important aspects of female life in this era, including family and marriage, motherhood, political power, work, inheritance, education, and religious roles. He traces women’s lived experiences as well as the emotional life and the ideals they pursued. Building on the best Western and Japanese scholarship, Hinsch also draws heavily on Chinese primary sources and scholarship, most of which is unknown outside China. As the first study in English about women in the early medieval era, this groundbreaking book will open a new window into Chinese history for Western readers.

Download or read book Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature vol 2 written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At last here is the long-awaited, first Western-language reference guide focusing exclusively on Chinese literature from ca. 700 B.C.E. to the early seventh century C.E. Alphabetically organized, it contains no less than 1095 entries on major and minor writers, literary forms and "schools," and important Chinese literary terms. In addition to providing authoritative information about each subject, the compilers have taken meticulous care to include detailed, up-to-date bibliographies and source information. The reader will find it a treasure-trove of historical accounts, especially when browsing through the biographies of authors. Indispensable for scholars and students of pre-modern Chinese literature, history, and thought. Part Two contains S to Xi.

Download or read book Mathematical Commentaries in the Ancient World written by Karine Chemla and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-09 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book-length analysis of the techniques and procedures of ancient mathematical commentaries. It focuses on examples in Chinese, Sanskrit, Akkadian and Sumerian, and Ancient Greek, presenting the general issues by constant detailed reference to these commentaries, of which substantial extracts are included in the original languages and in translation, sometimes for the first time. This makes the issues accessible to readers without specialized training in mathematics or in the languages involved. The result is a much richer understanding than was hitherto possible of the crucial role of commentaries in the history of mathematics in four different linguistic areas, of the nature of mathematical commentaries in general, of the contribution that the study of mathematical commentaries can make to the history of science and to the study of commentaries in general, and of the ways in which mathematical commentaries are like and unlike other kinds of commentaries.

Download or read book Astral Sciences in Early Imperial China written by Daniel Patrick Morgan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-03 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative history of astronomy in China, 221 BCE-750 CE, stressing plurality, change and the unifying power of myth-making.

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Chinese History written by Michael Dillon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 1223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China has become accessible to the west in the last twenty years in a way that was not possible in the previous thirty. The number of westerners travelling to China to study, for business or for tourism has increased dramatically and there has been a corresponding increase in interest in Chinese culture, society and economy and increasing coverage of contemporary China in the media. Our understanding of China’s history has also been evolving. The study of history in the People’s Republic of China during the Mao Zedong period was strictly regulated and primary sources were rarely available to westerners or even to most Chinese historians. Now that the Chinese archives are open to researchers, there is a growing body of academic expertise on history in China that is open to western analysis and historical methods. This has in many ways changed the way that Chinese history, particularly the modern period, is viewed. The Encyclopedia of Chinese History covers the entire span of Chinese history from the period known primarily through archaeology to the present day. Treating Chinese history in the broadest sense, the Encyclopedia includes coverage of the frontier regions of Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet that have played such an important role in the history of China Proper and will also include material on Taiwan, and on the Chinese diaspora. In A-Z format with entries written by experts in the field of Chinese Studies, the Encyclopedia will be an invaluable resource for students of Chinese history, politics and culture.