Download or read book A Social History of the Chinese Book written by Joseph P. McDermott and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2006-04-01 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this learned, yet readable, book, Joseph McDermott introduces the history of the book in China in the late imperial period from 1000 to 1800. He assumes little knowledge of Chinese history or culture and compares the Chinese experience with books with that of other civilizations, particularly the European. Yet he deals with a wide range of issues in the history of the book in China and presents novel analyses of the changes in Chinese woodblock bookmaking over these centuries. He presents a new view of when the printed book replaced the manuscript and what drove that substitution. He explores the distribution and marketing structure of books, and writes fascinatingly on the history of book collecting and about access to private and government book collections. In drawing on a great deal of Chinese, Japanese, and Western research this book provides a broad account of the way Chinese books were printed, distributed, and consumed by literati and scholars, mainly in the lower Yangzi delta, the cultural center of China during these centuries. It introduces interesting personalities, ranging from wily book collectors to an indigent shoe-repairman collector. And, it discusses the obstacles to the formation of a truly national printed culture for both the well-educated and the struggling reader in recent times. This broad and comprehensive account of the development of printed Chinese culture from 1000 to 1800 is written for anyone interested in the history of the book. It also offers important new insights into book culture and its place in society for the student of Chinese history and culture. 'A brilliant piece of synthetic research as well as a delightful read, it offers a history of the Chinese book to the eighteenth century that is without equal.' - Timothy Brook, University of British Columbia 'Writers, scribes, engravers, printers, binders, publishers, distributors, dealers, literati, scholars, librarians, collectors, voracious readers — the full gamut of a vibrant book culture in China over one thousand years — are examined with eloquence and perception by Joseph McDermott in The Social History of the Book. His lively exploration will be of consuming interest to bibliophiles of every persuasion.' - Nicholas A. Basbanes, author of A Gentle Madness, Patience and Fortitude, A Splendor of Letters, and Every Book Its Reader Joseph McDermott is presently Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, and University Lecturer in Chinese at Cambridge University. He has published widely on Chinese social and economic history, most recently on the economy of the Song (or, Sung) dynasty for the Cambridge History of China. He has edited State and Court Ritual in China and Art and Power in East Asia.

Download or read book New Perspectives on Chinese Economic History written by Bozhong Li and published by Tsinghua University Press. This book was released on 2023-10-01 with total page 794 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In order to understand China's current economic miracle, it is essential to thoroughly study the true picture of China's economy before the arrival of the West in the mid-19th century. This volume collects the internationally influential Chinese economic historian Prof. Li Bozhong’s influential academic work written in English over several decades, focusing on how to abandon the previously prevailing Western-centric historical viewpoint and recognize the changes in China's economic history during the Ming and Qing dynasties from a new perspective. The selected papers are divided into two main categories: macro-level presentations and reports delivered at major international historical events, and specialized research on economic history, with a particular focus on the economic history of the Jiangnan region during the Ming and Qing Dynasties and comparative economic history between China and the West. The book aims to promote international exchanges in the field of Chinese economic history and expand the international vision of the younger generation of economic historians in our country. These papers, published in various journals and occasions, generated a positive academic response abroad. Upon compilation and publication, this volume will further promote international exchanges in Chinese economic history and enhance the international vision of young economists. Prof. Li Bozheng, born in Kunming, Yunnan Province in 1949, graduated from Xiamen University. He is among the first batch of master's and doctoral degree recipients in history following the restoration of the degree system in new China, and also a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan in the United States. Currently, he serves as a Humanities Chair Professor at Peking University. In 1998, Prof. Li Bozheng joined Tsinghua University, and founded the Tsinghua University Center for Chinese Economic History. He has held various roles, including consultant, director of the History Department, and director of the Institute of Intellectual and Cultural Studies. In 2009, he joined the Tsinghua University Academy of Sinology. Throughout his career, Prof. Li Bozheng has been a guest professor at numerous universities, including the French School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, the London School of Economics and Political Science (Department of Economic History), Keio University (Faculty of Economics), Harvard University (Department of East Asian Civilizations and Languages), the University of Michigan (History Department), the California Institute of Technology (Division of Humanities and Social Sciences), and the University of California (History Department). A long-term devotee to the study of Chinese economic history, he has published over ten monographs and ninety academic papers in both Chinese and English, making significant contributions to the field.

Download or read book New Perspectives on China s Late Imperial Period written by Patrick Leung and published by Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers. This book was released on 2020-03-26 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Foreword provides an explanation of the rationale for New Perspectives on China's Late Imperial Period: Why China Slept and gives an overview of the book's structure and a brief summary of each chapter. The book finds inspiration from George Orwell's astute observation: 'Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.' Since the West is the victor in the past two centuries, it controls the dominant and mainstream narrative of past history, including the history of China's Ming and Qing era. Why China Slept attempts to perceive China's past from a different perspective, in part by drawing upon the viewpoints of a number of non-conventional scholars from both the West and East, and considers its implications for the future. The book endeavors to re-examine all the conventional reasons given for China's stagnation and decline in the late imperial period in order to come up with a new framework for understanding China's rapid recovery in recent decades"--

Download or read book The Economy of Lower Yangzi Delta in Late Imperial China written by Billy Kee Long So and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores aspects of this vibrant market economy in late imperial China, and by presenting a reconstructed narrative of economic development in the early modern Jiangnan, provides new perspectives on established theories of Chinese economic development. Further, by examining economic values alongside social structures, this book produces a historically comprehensive account of the contemporary Chinese economy which engenders a deeper and broader understanding of China's current economic success.

Download or read book The Modern Chinese State written by David Shambaugh and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-05-08 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description

Download or read book Chinese Women in the Imperial Past written by Harriet Zurndorfer and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-08-22 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present volume is the result of a Leiden University workshop on women in imperial China by a group of international scholars. In recent years Chinese women and gender studies have attracted more and more attention, and this book is one of the first efforts to focus on major aspects of this subject. It covers a wide range of topics and disciplines, including bibliography, demography, history, legal studies, literature, history of medicine, and philosophy. Chinese Women in the Imperial Past can rightly be seen as connected with the new Brill journal NAN NÜ, Men, Women and Gender in Early and Imperial China, which was founded to provide the scholarly community with a lasting forum in which the subject of Chinese women and gender can be dealt with in its own right.

Download or read book Remaking the Chinese Empire written by Yuanchong Wang and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-15 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Remaking the Chinese Empire examines China's development from an empire into a modern state through the lens of Sino-Korean political relations during the Qing period. Incorporating Korea into the historical narrative of the Chinese empire, it demonstrates that the Manchu regime used its relations with Chosŏn Korea to establish, legitimize, and consolidate its identity as the civilized center of the world, as a cosmopolitan empire, and as a modern sovereign state. For the Manchu regime and for the Chosŏn Dynasty, the relationship was one of mutual dependence, central to building and maintaining political legitimacy. Yuanchong Wang illuminates how this relationship served as the very model for China's foreign relations. Ultimately, this precipitated contests, conflicts, and compromises among empires and states in East Asia, Inner Asia, and Southeast Asia – in particular, in the nineteenth century when international law reached the Chinese world. By adopting a long-term and cross-border perspective on high politics at the empire's core and periphery, Wang revises our understanding of the rise and transformation of the last imperial dynasty of China. His work reveals new insights on the clashes between China's foreign relations system and its Western counterpart, imperialism and colonialism in the Chinese world, and the formation of modern sovereign states in East Asia. Most significantly, Remaking the Chinese Empire breaks free of the established, national history-oriented paradigm, establishing a new paradigm through which to observe and analyze the Korean impact on the Qing Dynasty.

Download or read book New Terms for New Ideas written by Michael Lackner and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2001 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is about the lasting impact of new (Western) notions on the 19th and early 20th century Chinese language; their invention, spread and standardization. Topics examined range from preconceptions about the capacity of the Chinese language to accommodate foreign ideas, the formation of specific nomenclatures and the roles of individual translators, to Chinese and European attempts at coming to terms with each other s grammar. A valuable reference work for all those interested in the historical semantics of modern China.

Download or read book The Peking Gazette in Late Imperial China written by Emily Mokros and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2021-05-20 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), China experienced far greater access to political information than suggested by the blunt measures of control and censorship employed by modern Chinese regimes. A tenuous partnership between the court and the dynamic commercial publishing enterprises of late imperial China enabled the publication of gazettes in a wide range of print and manuscript formats. For both domestic and foreign readers these official gazettes offered vital information about the Qing state and its activities, transmitting state news across a vast empire and beyond. And the most essential window onto Qing politics was the Peking Gazette, a genre that circulated globally over the course of the dynasty. This illuminating study presents a comprehensive history of the Peking Gazette and frames it as the cornerstone of a Qing information policy that, paradoxically, prized both transparency and secrecy. Gazettes gave readers a glimpse into the state’s inner workings but also served as a carefully curated form of public relations. Historian Emily Mokros draws from international archives to reconstruct who read the gazette and how they used it to guide their interactions with the Chinese state. Her research into the Peking Gazette’s evolution over more than two centuries is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the relationship between media, information, and state power.

Download or read book Boundaries and Beyond written by Ng Chin-keong and published by NUS Press. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using the concept of boundaries, physical and cultural, to understand the development of China’s maritime southeast in late Imperial times, and its interactions across maritime East Asia and the broader Asian Seas, these linked essays by a senior scholar in the field challenge the usual readings of Chinese history from the centre. After an opening essay which positions China’s southeastern coast within a broader view of maritime Asia, the first section of the book looks at boundaries, between “us” and “them”, Chinese and other, during this period. The second section looks at the challenges to such rigid demarcations posed by the state and existed in the status quo. The third section discusses movements of people, goods and ideas across national borders and cultural boundaries, seeing tradition and innovation as two contesting forces in a constant state of interaction, compromise and reconciliation. This approach underpins a fresh understanding of China’s boundaries and the distinctions that separate China from the rest of the world. In developing this theme, Ng Chin-keong draws on many years of writing and research in Chinese and European archives. Of interest to students of migration, of Chinese history, and of the long term perspective on relations between China and its region, Ng’s analysis provides a crucial background to the historical shared experience of the people in Asian maritime zones. The result is a novel way of approaching Chinese history, argued from the perspective of a fresh understanding of China’s relations with neighbouring territories and the populations residing there, and of the nature of tradition and its persistence in the face of changing circumstances.

Download or read book Gender in Motion written by Bryna Goodman and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2005 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Governing notions of the social order (and interrelated constructions of gender) changed radically in the modern era - initially with the questioning of the imperial, dynastic order and the creation of a Chinese republic in the early twentieth century, later with the creation of a Communist government and, most recently, with China's political and cultural transformations in the post-Mao era. As ideas and practices of gender have changed, the persistence of older rhetorical signs in the interstices of new political visions has complicated the social projects and understandings of modernity, especially in terms of the creation of new public spaces, new concepts of work and virtue, and new configurations of gender."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book Civil Examinations and Meritocracy in Late Imperial China written by Benjamin A. Elman and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During China's late imperial period (roughly 1400-1900 CE), men would gather by the millions every two or three years outside official examination compounds sprinkled across China. Only one percent of candidates would complete the academic regimen that would earn them a post in the administrative bureaucracy. Civil Examinations assesses the role of education, examination, and China's civil service in fostering the world's first professional class based on demonstrated knowledge and skill. While millions of men dreamed of the worldly advancement an imperial education promised, many more wondered what went on inside the prestigious walled-off examination compounds. As Benjamin A. Elman reveals, what occurred was the weaving of a complex social web. Civil examinations had been instituted in China as early as the seventh century CE, but in the Ming and Qing eras they were the nexus linking the intellectual, political, and economic life of imperial China. Local elites and members of the court sought to influence how the government regulated the classical curriculum and selected civil officials. As a guarantor of educational merit, civil examinations served to tie the dynasty to the privileged gentry and literati classes--both ideologically and institutionally. China did away with its classical examination system in 1905. But this carefully balanced and constantly contested piece of social engineering, worked out over the course of centuries, was an early harbinger of the meritocratic regime of college boards and other entrance exams that undergirds higher education in much of the world today.

Download or read book National Polity and Local Power written by Tu-ki Min and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-10-26 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite efforts to attain a more balanced approach, Western historians have largely interpreted China's modern period in terms of China's "response to the West." To a surprising extent, this bias has prevailed even among Chinese historians, for whom the reaction to imperialism has remained a dominant concept. This book, by a scholar who is neither Chinese nor Western,goes far to set the balance right. Min Tu-ki, Korea's leading Sinologist, shows how China's own internal agenda has conditioned Chinese political life during the transition to modernity. Min sets the stage with two chapters about Chinese scciety under Ch'ing rule, one on a Korean visitor's reaction to eighteeenth-century China, the other on the social condition of the lower gentry. Each casts new light on the Chinese elite and their relation to state power. The chapters that follow-particularly the discussion of "political feudalism"-examine the conceptual resources available within the Chinese tradition for coming to terms with modernity. Min's internalist approach provides both a creative new vision of the encounter between two civilizations and a distinguished introduction to Korean Sinology.

Download or read book Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China written by Cynthia J. Brokaw and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2005-03-07 with total page 559 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the importance of books and the written word in Chinese society, the history of the book in China is a topic that has been little explored. This pioneering volume of essays, written by historians, art historians, and literary scholars, introduces the major issues in the social and cultural history of the book in late imperial China. Informed by many insights from the rich literature on the history of the Western book, these essays investigate the relationship between the manuscript and print culture; the emergence of urban and rural publishing centers; the expanding audience for books; the development of niche markets and specialized publishing of fiction, drama, non-Han texts, and genealogies; and more.

Download or read book The Economy of Lower Yangzi Delta in Late Imperial China written by Billy K. L. So and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-02 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historically, the Lower Yangzi Delta (or Jiangnan), has played a key role in China’s economic development. Indeed, as the prime example of a traditional Chinese market economy, the region serves as the core case study when making comparisons between the Chinese and Western economies in the early modern period. This book explores aspects of this vibrant market economy in late imperial China, and by presenting a reconstructed narrative of economic development in the early modern Jiangnan, provides new perspectives on established theories of Chinese economic development. Further, by examining economic values alongside social structures, this book produces a historically comprehensive account of the contemporary Chinese economy which engenders a deeper and broader understanding of China’s current economic success. With a broad range of empirical case studies which incorporate a range of social science and cultural theories, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Chinese history, as well as Chinese economics and business.

Download or read book China s Conquest of Taiwan in the Seventeenth Century written by Young-tsu Wong and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-08-05 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to comprehensively cover the historical process leading to Taiwan’s integration with Mainland China in the seventeenth century. As such, it addresses the Taiwan question in the seventeenth century, presenting for the first time the process leading to the island’s integration with the mainland through the story of the Zheng family and Admiral Shi Lang. The author has confirmed Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga)’s Ming loyalism and his politicization of the conflicts on the China coast. Thus, the author concludes that Zheng was a “revolutionary traditionalist” who transformed sheer violence into a political movement in an unprecedented way. He politicized the entire region and paved the way for the inevitable conflict with Mainland China. After repeated political talks had failed, the rising Qing China decided to take Taiwan by force. Though seaborne warfare was a formidable task at the time, the man who overcame these difficulties and completed the seemingly impossible mission was none other than Admiral Shi Lang. The book provides a new and more justifiable assessment of the Admiral’s contribution to the conquest of Taiwan and pacification of coastal unrest. The book will be of interest to general readers as well as specialists researching security and warfare on the China coast.

Download or read book Chinese History in Economic Perspective written by Thomas G. Rawski and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2024-07-26 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume marks a turning point in the study of Chinese economic history. It arose from a realization that the economic history of China—as opposed to the history of the Chinese economy—had yet to be written. Most histories of the Chinese economy, whether by Western or Chinese scholars, tend to view the economy in institutional or social terms. In contrast, the studies in this volume break new ground by systematically applying economic theory and methods to the study of China. While demonstrating to historians the advantages of an economic perspective, the contributors, comprising both historians and economists, offer important new insights concerning issues of long-standing interest to both disciplines. Part One, on price behavior, presents for the first time preliminary analyses of the incomparably rich and important grain price data from the imperial archives in Beijing and Taibei during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). These studies reveal long-term trends in the Chinese economy since the seventeenth century and contain surprising discoveries about market integration, the agricultural economy, and demographic behavior in different regions of China. The essays in Part Two, on market response, deal with different aspects of the economy of Republican China (1912–49), showing that markets for land, labor, and capital sometimes functioned as predicted by models of economic "rationality" but at other times behaved in ways that can be explained only by combining economic analysis with knowledge of political, regional, class, and gender differences. Based on new types of data, they suggest novel interpretations of the Chinese economic experience. The resulting collection is interdisciplinary scholarship of a high order, which weaves together the analytic framework provided by economic theory and the rich texture of social phenomena gathered by accomplished historians. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992.