Download or read book Zizhi Tongjian written by Sima Guang and published by . This book was released on 2016-05-31 with total page 670 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zizhi tongjian Vol 1-8 - Warring States and Qin - Translated by Joseph P Yap Sima Guang (1019-1086 CE) completed his Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance) in 1084, a monumental historiography that commences in 403 BCE and ends in 959 CE, covering a span of 1362 years of ancient and medieval Chinese history. Qin Mu the eminent contemporary Chinese historian remarks, "Sima Guang successfully merged the three disciplines of literature, history, and philosophy into one entity." The Zizhi tongjian is about historical experience, and Sima Guang maintains that the heads-of-states can learn so much by studying history. The book has earned high acclaim among Chinese and Asian scholars ever since its publication. However, only a very small part of the work has been translated into English; hence, the work is not widely read. This volume of this translation begins in 403 BCE and concludes with the fall of the Qin Dynasty in 207 BCE. The Zizhi tongian assimilated the exceptional attributes and defining qualities of the Zuozhuan (the Commentary of Zuo) and the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian). Since its publication, it has held a very special and esteemed position among Chinese scholars and historians. Although the work was principally sponsored and financed by the Song Imperial Court, it was organized and written by private individuals; it, therefore, deviated significantly from historical texts prepared by court officials during previous dynasties. In 403 BCE, the once powerful Jin hegemonic state was partitioned into Hann, Wei, and Zhao. Together with Qi, Qin, Chu and Yan they came to be known as the seven warring states. Sima Guang in his annotation on the enfeoffment of the three fief lords by the King of Zhou laments over the breakdown of li (rites). He says, 'It was not the three Jin ministers who bankrupted the instituted rites; rather, the Son of Heaven brought on the collapse.' He contends that as the illegitimate act of partitioning a state by its subjects was legitimized by the Son of Heaven - the Zhou king was wholly accountable for the demise. Sima Guang thus chose to commence his chronicle of Zizhi tongjian during the 23rd year of King Weilei of Zhou, 403 BCE, when the Son of Heaven enfeoffed the Jin ministers. The times of the Warring States was about reforms, political strategies, intrigue, warfares, conquests and wholesale massacres when the major states vied for control of China. Wei was the first state that made reforms and enjoyed of decades of prosperity and military strength; it was followed by others in varying forms. The tide turned when Duke Xiao of Qin ascended to the throne; he made resolve to strengthen his state, and it was the turning point of the Warring States. Through Shang Yang's reform, Qin basically laid down the foundation for the final conquest of the six states. This volume offers the readers a glimpse of the political struggles between the seven states culuminating in the final unification of China by by the First Emperor Qin Shihuang in 221 BCE. The book ends with the demise of Qin. When Sima Qian (145?-90 BCE) composed the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian) he used all the information that was available to him, numerous errors were incorporated. Sima Guang, while conducted extensive research, drew copiously on the information from Shiji on the parts of Warring States, Qin, and early Han, and his work included many of the mistakes made. Ever since much textual and archaeological information on the Warring States have become available. Yang Kuan, one of the most eminent contemporary scholars, had conducted extensive textual and archaeological research on the Warring States, shedding much light on the errors on Shiji, Zhanguoce (Warring States Strategies) and Zizhi tongjian. The author translated some of his more outstanding articles.

Download or read book Wars with the Xiongnu written by Guang Sima and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume of - Wars with the Xiongnu is about a nomadic confederation - the Kingdom of Xiongnu to the north of ancient China, most notably for the relentless, atrocious and bloodletting wars that lasted for over two centuries with the mighty Han dynasty, comparable in size and power as Rome during its height. The roaming Xiongnu people, so powerful boasted of having a kingdom striding from Eastern Siberia to the west at the Altai Mountains in Central Asia, with territories so vast - even larger than the mighty Han at its zenith, were a wrath to its immediate neighbours for a period of no less than six centuries; yet with an estimated population of only one and a half million they were able to hold the Han Kingdom, during its height of fifty million people at bay. The powerful nomadic Kingdom rose to power from the midst of nowhere, reached its zenith, ran its course, its vitality and vigour spent, declined and vanished into oblivion without so much as a trace in the mists of time, albeit burial remains and textual references, predominantly from Chinese textual sources. This captivating page of history has prompted many eastern and western scholars to make in-depth studies into these fascinating people. Sushi tonguing, the text which this translation is based, does not offer us with any satisfactory explanations to the vicissitudes of the mighty kingdom, nonetheless there are clues and evidence throughout the text, the reader is encouraged to make his or her own hypothesis and conclusions. The accounts in the book are direct translations from the narratives of Sushi tonguing, the first time this part of the text that has been translated into English.

Download or read book The Intercultural Weaving of Historical Texts written by Nicolas Standaert and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-05-18 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The European view on history was shaken to its foundations when missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries discovered that Chinese history was older than European and Biblical history. With an analysis of the Chinese, Manchu and European sources on ancient Chinese history, this essay proposes an early case of “intercultural historiography,” in which historical texts of different cultures are interwoven. It focusses on the ways Chinese and European authors interpreted stories about marvellous births by the concubines of Emperor Ku. These stories have been the object of a wide variety of interpretations in Chinese texts, each of them representing a different historical genre. They are excellent case-studies to illustrate how the Chinese hermeneutic strategies shaped the diversity of interpretations given by Europeans.

Download or read book Medieval Chinese Warfare 300 900 written by David Graff and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortly after 300 AD, barbarian invaders from Inner Asia toppled China's Western Jin dynasty, leaving the country divided and at war for several centuries. Despite this, the empire gradually formed a unified imperial order. Medieval Chinese Warfare, 300-900 explores the military strategies, institutions and wars that reconstructed the Chinese empire that has survived into modern times. Drawing on classical Chinese sources and the best modern scholarship from China and Japan, David A. Graff connects military affairs with political and social developments to show how China's history was shaped by war.

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 Women Shall Not Rule written by Keith McMahon and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2013-06-06 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chinese emperors guaranteed male successors by taking multiple wives, in some cases hundreds and even thousands. Women Shall Not Rule offers a fascinating history of imperial wives and concubines, especially in light of the greatest challenges to polygamous harmony—rivalry between women and their attempts to engage in politics. Besides ambitious empresses and concubines, these vivid stories of the imperial polygamous family are also populated with prolific emperors, wanton women, libertine men, cunning eunuchs, and bizarre cases of intrigue and scandal among rival wives. Keith McMahon, a leading expert on the history of gender in China, draws upon decades of research to describe the values and ideals of imperial polygamy and the ways in which it worked and did not work in real life. His rich sources are both historical and fictional, including poetic accounts and sensational stories told in pornographic detail. Displaying rare historical breadth, his lively and fascinating study will be invaluable as a comprehensive and authoritative resource for all readers interested in the domestic life of royal palaces across the world.

Download or read book Three Kingdoms and Chinese Culture written by Kimberly Besio 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: This is the first book-length treatment in English of Three Kingdoms (Sanguo yanyi), often regarded as China's first great classical novel. Set in the historical period of the disunion (220–280 AD), Three Kingdoms fuses history and popular tradition to create a sweeping epic of heroism and political ambition. The essays in this volume explore the multifarious connections between Three Kingdoms and Chinese culture from a variety of disciplines, including history, literature, philosophy, art history, theater, cultural studies, and communications, demonstrating the diversity of backgrounds against which this novel can be studied. Some of the most memorable episodes and figures in Chinese literature appear within its pages, and Three Kingdoms has had a profound influence on personal, social, and political behavior, even language usage, in the daily life of people in China today. The novel has inspired countless works of theater and art, and, more recently, has been the source for movies and a television series. Long popular in other countries of East Asia, such as Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, Three Kingdoms has also been introduced to younger generations around the globe through a series of extremely popular computer games. This study helps create a better understanding of the work's unique place in Chinese culture.

Download or read book Perspectives on Plagiarism and Intellectual Property in a Postmodern World written by Lise Buranen and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1999-04-23 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contributors offer many definitions and facets of plagiarism and intellectual property, demonstrating that if defining a supposedly "simple" concept is difficult, then applying multiple definitions is even harder, creating practical problems in many realms.

Download or read book Communication Civilization and China written by Bin Li and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-11-11 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Referencing more than 40 ancient works as well as 70 books and papers of contemporary scholars, this book opens up the civilization, society, culture and communication of the Tang Dynasty. The Tang period represented unprecedented prosperity in the ancient world. Combining the socio-cultural background of ancient China and academic achievements of modern times, this book presents an intensive and in-depth exploration of the communicative organisations, methods and ideas of that period. The book looks at Tang methods of communication, from the postal delivery system and first newspaper to military communication in times of peace and war. It also considers questions of literature, poetry and public space as well as the impact of folk culture and communication on the Tang Dynasty, and examines the intellectual atmosphere of the time and debates surrounding freedom of speech and thought, positioning the Tang Dynasty as the end of the classic world and the beginning of modern society.

Download or read book Just a Scholar The Memoirs of Zhou Yiliang 1913 2001 written by Yiliang Zhou and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-10-02 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of China's premier historians of the twentieth century, Zhou Yiliang (1913-2001) experienced many of the tumultuous events of that century. Born into a wealthy family, his father saw to his pre-college education through a range of tutors which afforded him not only a profound traditional Chinese education but a modern one as well--including virtually native fluency in English and Japanese. He later earned degrees in Beijing before leaving to study and earn a Ph.D. at Harvard during the years of World War II. Given the dearth of Americans who knew Japanese, he was called up in the 1940s to help teach Americans that language. He returned to China after the war, took up academic positions, and found himself the object of severe controversy as the events of post-1949 China unfolded, especially those of the Cultural Revolution. These are his memoirs of his extraordinary life and work.

Download or read book The Oxford History of Historical Writing written by José Rabasa and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-03-29 with total page 750 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume III of The Oxford History of Historical Writing contains essays by leading scholars on the writing of history globally during the early modern era, from 1400 to 1800. The volume proceeds in geographic order from east to west, beginning in Asia and ending in the Americas. It aims at once to provide a selective but authoritative survey of the field and, where opportunity allows, to provoke cross-cultural comparisons. This is the third of five volumes in a series that explores representations of the past from the beginning of writing to the present day, and from all over the world.

Download or read book Mirroring the Past written by On-cho Ng and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2005-08-31 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China is known for its deep veneration of history. Far more than a record of the past, history to the Chinese is the magister vitae (teacher of life): the storehouse of moral lessons and bureaucratic precedents. Mirroring the Past presents a comprehensive history of traditional Chinese historiography from antiquity to the mid-Qing period. Organized chronologically, the book traces the development of historical thinking and writing in Imperial China, beginning with the earliest forms of historical consciousness and ending with adumbrations of the fundamentally different views engendered by mid-nineteenth-century encounters with the West. The historiography of each era is explored on two levels: first, the gathering of material and the writing and production of narratives to describe past events; second, the thinking and reflecting on meanings and patterns of the past. Significantly, the book embeds within this chronological structure integrated views of Chinese historiography, bringing to light the purposive, didactic, and normative uses of the past. Examining both the worlds of official and unofficial historiography, the authors lay bare the ingenious ways in which Chinese scholars extracted truth from events and reveal how schemas and philosophies of history were constructed and espoused. They highlight the dynamic nature of Chinese historiography, revealing that historical works mapped the contours of Chinese civilization not for the sake of understanding history as disembodied and theoretical learning, but for the pragmatic purpose of guiding the world by mirroring the past in all its splendor and squalor.

Download or read book The Oxford History of Historical Writing written by Sarah Foot and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-10-25 with total page 671 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How was history written in Europe and Asia between 400-1400? How was the past understood in religious, social and political terms? And in what ways does the diversity of historical writing in this period mask underlying commonalities in narrating the past? The volume, which assembles 28 contributions from leading historians, tackles these and other questions. Part I provides comprehensive overviews of the development of historical writing in societies that range from the Korean Peninsula to north-west Europe, which together highlight regional and cultural distinctiveness. Part II complements the first part by taking a thematic and comparative approach; it includes essays on genre, warfare, and religion (amongst others) which address common concerns of historians working in this liminal period before the globalizing forces of the early modern world.

Download or read book An Historical Sketch of Chinese Historiography written by Huaiqi Wu and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-01-09 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book systematically traces the development of Chinese historiography from the 2nd century B.C. to the 19th century A.D. Refusing to fit the Chinese historical narration into the modern Western discourse, the author highlights the significant questions that concern traditional historians, their philosophical foundations, their development over three thousand years and their influence on the intelligentsia. China is a country defined in terms of its history and its historians have worked hard to record the past. However, this book approaches Chinese history from the very beginning not only as a way of recording, but also as a way of dealing with the past in order to orient the people of the present in the temporal dimension of their lives. This book was listed as the key textbook of the “Eleventh Five-year Plan” for college students in China.

Download or read book Knowledge and Text Production in an Age of Print China 900 1400 written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011-02-17 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume seek to flesh out the diversity of Chinese textual production during the period spanning the tenth and fourteenth centuries when printing became a widely used technology. By exploring the social and political relations that shaped the production and reproduction of printed texts, the impact of intellectual and religious formations on book production, the interaction between print and other media, readership, and the growth of collections, the contributors offer the first comprehensive examination of the cultural history of book production in the first 500 years of the history of printing. In an afterword historian of the early modern European book, Ann Blair, reflects on the volume's implications for the comparative study of the impact of printing.

Download or read book The Oxford History of Historical Writing written by Daniel R. Woolf and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2011 with total page 671 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays from leading historians which explores the ways in which history was written in Europe and Asia between 400 and 1400.

Download or read book Buddhism Diplomacy and Trade written by Tansen Sen and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-09-11 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relations between China and India underwent a dramatic transformation from Buddhist-dominated to commerce-centered exchanges in the seventh to fifteenth centuries. The unfolding of this transformation, its causes, and wider ramifications are examined in this masterful analysis of the changing patterns of the interaction between the two most important cultural spheres in Asia. Tansen Sen offers a new perspective on Sino-Indian relations during the Tang dynasty (618–907), arguing that the period is notable not only for religious and diplomatic exchanges but also for the process through which China emerged as a center of Buddhist learning, practice, and pilgrimage. Before the seventh century, the Chinese clergy—given the spatial gap between the sacred Buddhist world of India and the peripheral China—suffered from a “borderland complex.” A close look at the evolving practice of relic veneration in China (at Famen Monastery in particular), the exposition of Mount Wutai as an abode of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, and the propagation of the idea of Maitreya’s descent in China, however, reveals that by the eighth century China had overcome its complex and successfully established a Buddhist realm within its borders. The emergence of China as a center of Buddhism had profound implications on religious interactions between the two countries and is cited by Sen as one of the main causes for the weakening of China’s spiritual attraction toward India. At the same time, the growth of indigenous Chinese Buddhist schools and teachings retrenched the need for doctrinal input from India. A detailed examination of the failure of Buddhist translations produced during the Song dynasty (960–1279), demonstrates that these developments were responsible for the unraveling of religious bonds between the two countries and the termination of the Buddhist phase of Sino-Indian relations. Sen proposes that changes in religious interactions were paralleled by changes in commercial exchanges. For most of the first millennium, trading activities between India and China were closely connected with and sustained through the transmission of Buddhist doctrines. The eleventh and twelfth centuries, however, witnessed dramatic changes in the patterns and structure of mercantile activity between the two countries. Secular bulk and luxury goods replaced Buddhist ritual items, maritime channels replaced the overland Silk Road as the most profitable conduits of commercial exchange, and many of the merchants involved were followers of Islam rather than Buddhism. Moreover, policies to encourage foreign trade instituted by the Chinese government and the Indian kingdoms contributed to the intensification of commercial activity between the two countries and transformed the China-India trading circuit into a key segment of cross-continental commerce.