Behaving Badly In Early And Medieval China

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Behaving Badly in Early and Medieval China

Author : N. Harry Rothschild
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824867823
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis Behaving Badly in Early and Medieval China by : N. Harry Rothschild

Download or read book Behaving Badly in Early and Medieval China written by N. Harry Rothschild and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2018-10-31 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Behaving Badly in Early and Medieval China presents a rogues’ gallery of treacherous regicides, impious monks, cutthroat underlings, ill-bred offspring, and disloyal officials. It plumbs the dark matter of the human condition, placing front and center transgressive individuals and groups traditionally demonized by Confucian annalists and largely shunned by modern scholars. The work endeavors to apprehend the actions and motivations of these men and women, whose conduct deviated from normative social, cultural, and religious expectations. Early chapters examine how core Confucian bonds such as those between parents and children, and ruler and minister, were compromised, even severed. The living did not always reverently pay homage to the dead, children did not honor their parents with due filiality, a decorous distance was not necessarily observed between sons and stepmothers, and subjects often pursued their own interests before those of the ruler or the state. The elasticity of ritual and social norms is explored: Chapters on brazen Eastern Han (25–220) mourners and deviant calligraphers, audacious falconers, volatile Tang (618–907) Buddhist monks, and drunken Song (960–1279) literati reveal social norms treated not as universal truths but as debated questions of taste wherein political and social expedience both determined and highlighted individual roles within larger social structures and defined what was and was not aberrant. A Confucian predilection to “valorize [the] civil and disparage the martial” and Buddhist proscriptions on killing led literati and monks alike to condemn the cruelty and chaos of war. The book scrutinizes cultural attitudes toward military action and warfare, including those surrounding the bloody and capricious world of the Zuozhuan (Chronicle of Zuo), the relentless violence of the Five Dynasties and Ten States periods (907–979), and the exploits of Tang warrior priests—a series of studies that complicates the rhetoric by situating it within the turbulent realities of the times. By the end of this volume, readers will come away with the understanding that behaving badly in early and medieval China was not about morality but perspective, politics, and power.

The Emperor's Feast

Author : Jonathan Clements
Publisher : Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN 13 : 1529332435
Total Pages : 404 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (293 download)

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Book Synopsis The Emperor's Feast by : Jonathan Clements

Download or read book The Emperor's Feast written by Jonathan Clements and published by Hodder & Stoughton. This book was released on 2021-02-11 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A galloping journey through thousands of years of Chinese culinary history . . . a timely reminder that the country's modern cuisine is the delicious fruit of a rich, ancient and perhaps surprisingly multicultural tradition' FUCHSIA DUNLOP, SPECTATOR 'A tasty portrait of a nation' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'A splendid introduction to the complex history of China' GUARDIAN 'A terrific read . . . Jonathan Clements writes with erudition and humour' DAILY MAIL 'This book is itself a feast, each chapter a sumptuous course' Frederik L. Schodt, author of My Heart Sutra 'Witty and insightful' Derek Sandhaus, author of Drunk in China **************** The history of China - not according to emperors or battles, but according to its food and drink. The Emperor's Feast is the epic story of a nation and a people, told through one of its most fundamental pillars and successful exports: food. Following the journeys of different ingredients, dishes and eating habits over 5,000 years of history, author and presenter Jonathan Clements examines how China's political, cultural and technological evolution and her remarkable entrance onto the world stage have impacted how the Chinese - and the rest of the world - eat, drink and cook. We see the influence of invaders such as the Mongols and the Manchus, and discover how food - like the fiery cuisine of Sichuan or the hardy dishes of the north - often became a stand-in for regional and national identities. We also follow Chinese flavours to the shores of Europe and America, where enterprising chefs and home cooks created new traditions and dishes unheard of in the homeland. From dim sum to mooncakes to General Tso's chicken, The Emperor's Feast shows us that the story of Chinese food is ultimately the story of a nation: not just the one that history tells us, but also the one that China tells us about itself.

Performing Filial Piety in Northern Song China

Author : Cong Ellen Zhang
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 082488275X
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis Performing Filial Piety in Northern Song China by : Cong Ellen Zhang

Download or read book Performing Filial Piety in Northern Song China written by Cong Ellen Zhang and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2020-09-30 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Educated men in Song-dynasty China (960–1279) traveled frequently in search of scholarly and bureaucratic success. These extensive periods of physical mobility took them away from their families, homes, and native places for long periods of time, preventing them from fulfilling their most sacred domestic duty: filial piety to their parents. In this deeply grounded work, Ellen Zhang locates the tension between worldly ambition and family duty at the heart of elite social and cultural life. Drawing on more than 2,000 funerary biographies and other official and private writing, Zhang argues that the predicament in which Song literati found themselves diminished neither the importance of filial piety nor the appeal of participating in examinations and government service. On the contrary, the Northern Song witnessed unprecedented literati activity and state involvement in the bolstering of ancient forms of filial performances and the promotion of new ones. The result was the triumph of a new filial ideal: luyang. By labeling highly coveted honors and privileges attainable solely through scholarly and official accomplishments as the most celebrated filial acts, the luyang rhetoric elevated office-holding men to be the most filial of sons. Consequently, the proper performance of filiality became essential to scholar-official identity and self-representation. Zhang convincingly demonstrates that this reconfiguration of elite male filiality transformed filial piety into a status- and gender-based virtue, a change that had wide implications for elite family life and relationships in the Northern Song. The separation of elite men from their parents and homes also made the idea of “native place” increasingly fluid. This development in turn generated an interest in family preservation as filial performance. Individually initiated, kinship- and native place-based projects flourished and coalesced with the moral and cultural visions of leading scholar-intellectuals, providing the social and familial foundations for the ascendancy of Neo-Confucianism as well as new cultural norms that transformed Chinese society in the Song and beyond.

Women in Early Medieval China

Author : Bret Hinsch
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1538117975
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (381 download)

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Book Synopsis Women in Early Medieval China by : Bret Hinsch

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 234 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 known as the Six Dynasties, which lasted from the fall of the Eastern Han dynasty in AD 220 to the reunification of China by the Sui dynasty in AD 581.

Literate Community in Early Imperial China

Author : Charles Sanft
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438475144
Total Pages : 278 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis Literate Community in Early Imperial China by : Charles Sanft

Download or read book Literate Community in Early Imperial China written by Charles Sanft and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the role of meditation on the five elements in the practice of Yoga. This book examines ancient written materials from China’s northwestern border regions to offer fresh insights into the role of text in shaping society and culture during the Han period (206/2 BCE–220 CE). Left behind by military installations, these documents—wooden strips and other nontraditional textual materials such as silk—recorded the lives and activities of military personnel and the people around them. Charles Sanft explores their functions and uses by looking at a fascinating array of material, including posted texts on signaling across distances, practical texts on brewing beer and evaluating swords, and letters exchanged by officials working in low rungs of the bureaucracy. By focusing on all members of the community, he argues that a much broader section of early society had meaningful interactions with text than previously believed. This major shift in interpretation challenges long-standing assumptions about the limited range of influence that text and literacy had on culture and society and makes important contributions to early China studies, the study of literacy, and to the global history of non-elites. Charles Sanft is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is the author of Communication and Cooperation in Early Imperial China: Publicizing the Qin Dynasty, also published by SUNY Press.

Middle Imperial China, 900–1350

Author : Linda Walton
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108420680
Total Pages : 433 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis Middle Imperial China, 900–1350 by : Linda Walton

Download or read book Middle Imperial China, 900–1350 written by Linda Walton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-03 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly readable and engaging survey of China's history from the tenth through the mid-fourteenth centuries.

The East Asian World-System

Author : Eugene N. Anderson
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3030168700
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (31 download)

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Book Synopsis The East Asian World-System by : Eugene N. Anderson

Download or read book The East Asian World-System written by Eugene N. Anderson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book studies the East Asian world-system and its dynastic cycles as they were influenced by climate and demographic change, diseases, the expansion of trade, and the rise of science and technology. By studying the history of East Asia until the beginning of the 20th century and offering a comparative perspective on East Asian countries, including China, Japan and Korea, it describes the historical evolution of the East Asian world-system as being the result of good or poor management of the respective populations and environments. Lastly, the book discusses how the East Asian regions have become integrated into a single world-system by a combination of trade, commerce, and military action. Given its scope, the book will appeal to scholars of history, sociology, political science and environmental studies, and to anyone interested in learning about the effects of climate change on the dynamic development of societies.

The Origin of East Asian Medieval Capital Construction System

Author : Niu Runzhen
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000381765
Total Pages : 405 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (3 download)

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Book Synopsis The Origin of East Asian Medieval Capital Construction System by : Niu Runzhen

Download or read book The Origin of East Asian Medieval Capital Construction System written by Niu Runzhen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ye is a historical Chinese city built in 659 BC and burned down to the ground in AD 580. The book investigates the characteristics of the city’s layout and its deep influence on the urban construction in East Asia since the 6th century AD. By studying archaeological findings and historical documents, the author illustrates the historical significance of Ye city, both as capital for six dynasties over 370 years of ancient Chinese history and as a paragon of East Asian capital planning. Ye serves as an exemplary model for famous capitals in later dynasties of imperial China, such as Beijing and Xi’an. Its influence also extends to other East Asian capitals, including Seoul in Korea, Kyoto in Japan, and Hanoi in Vietnam. Comparing the archetypical structure of Ye city and the features of its East Asian descendants, the author encapsulates the lineage of capital city development across medieval East Asia and uncovers a philosophy of construction that rests upon traditional Chinese thinking. The book will be an essential read for scholars and general readers interested in East Asian heritage, urbanology, and architecture, as well as a useful reference for urban planners willing to learn from historical experience.

Nominal Things

Author : Jeffrey Moser
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022682246X
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (268 download)

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Book Synopsis Nominal Things by : Jeffrey Moser

Download or read book Nominal Things written by Jeffrey Moser and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2023-03-31 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction -- Part I. The lexical picture. Names as implements; Picturing names -- Part II. The empirical impression. The style of antiquity; Agents of change; Nominal empiricism -- Part III. The schematic thing. Substance into schema; Nominal casting -- Conclusion.

The Cambridge Companion to Religion and War

Author : Margo Kitts
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108858325
Total Pages : 487 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cambridge Companion to Religion and War by : Margo Kitts

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Religion and War written by Margo Kitts and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-05-11 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Companion offers a global, comparative history of the interplay between religion and war from ancient times to the present. Moving beyond sensationalist theories that seek to explain why 'religion causes war,' the volume takes a thoughtful look at the connection between religion and war through a variety of lenses - historical, literary, and sociological-as well as the particular features of religious war. The twenty-three carefully nuanced and historically grounded chapters comprehensively examine the religious foundations for war, classical just war doctrines, sociological accounts of religious nationalism, and featured conflicts that illustrate interdisciplinary expressions of the intertwining of religion and war. Written by a distinguished, international team of scholars, whose essays were specially commissioned for this volume, The Cambridge Companion to Religion and War will be an indispensable resource for students and scholars of the history and sociology of religion and war, as well as other disciplines.

Record of the Listener

Author : Hong Mai
Publisher : Hackett Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1624666868
Total Pages : 162 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (246 download)

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Book Synopsis Record of the Listener by : Hong Mai

Download or read book Record of the Listener written by Hong Mai and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 2018-03-02 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Scholars who know classical Chinese have been reading and citing Hon Mai's wonderful collection for many years. Now students can access these informative materials through Zhang's lively English translations. They are both fun to read and deeply informative about daily life, religion, markets, and multiple social groups in the twelfth century. The comprehensive thematic guide allows readers to locate tales by subject matter, making this collection of 100 narratives ideal for classroom use." —Valerie Hansen, Yale University

The Art and Archaeology of Human Engagements with Birds of Prey

Author : Robert J. Wallis
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350268003
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis The Art and Archaeology of Human Engagements with Birds of Prey by : Robert J. Wallis

Download or read book The Art and Archaeology of Human Engagements with Birds of Prey written by Robert J. Wallis and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-10-05 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all avian groups, birds of prey in particular have long been a prominent subject of fascination in many human societies. This book demonstrates that the art and materiality of human engagements with raptors has been significant through deep time and across the world, from earliest prehistory to Indigenous thinking in the present day. Drawing on a wide range of global case studies and a plurality of complementary perspectives, it explores the varied and fluid dynamics between humans and birds of prey as evidenced in this diverse art-historical and archaeological record. From their depictions as powerful beings in visual art and their important roles in Indigenous mythologies, to the significance of their body parts as active agents in religious rituals, the intentional deposition of their faunal remains and the display of their preserved bodies in museums, there is no doubt that birds of prey have been figures of great import for the shaping of human society and culture. However, several of the chapters in this volume are particularly concerned with looking beyond the culturenature dichotomy and human-centred accounts to explore perspectival and other post-humanist thinking on humanraptor ontologies and epistemologies. The contributors recognize that humanraptor relationships are not driven exclusively by human intentionality, and that when these species meet they relate-to and become-with one another. This 'raptor-with-human'-focused approach allows for a productive re-framing of questions about humanraptor interstices, enables fresh thinking about established evidence and offers signposts for present and future intra-actions with birds of prey.

The Routledge International Handbook of Morality, Cognition, and Emotion in China

Author : Ryan Nichols
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000576434
Total Pages : 326 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis The Routledge International Handbook of Morality, Cognition, and Emotion in China by : Ryan Nichols

Download or read book The Routledge International Handbook of Morality, Cognition, and Emotion in China written by Ryan Nichols and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-05-10 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ground-breaking handbook provides multi-disciplinary insight into Chinese morality, cognition and emotion by collecting in one place a comprehensive collection of essays focused on Chinese morality by world-leading experts from more than a dozen different academic fields of study. Through fifteen substantive chapters, readers are offered a holistic look into the ways morality could be interpreted in China, and a broad range of theoretical perspectives, including ecological, anthropological and cultural neuroscience. Offering a syncretic, multi-disciplinary overview that moves beyond the usual western-oriented perspective of China as a monolithic culture, research questions addressed in this book focus on morality as represented at the level of the individual, rather than at the group or institutional levels. Research questions explored herein include: What are the major contours of distinctively Chinese morality? What was the role of the ancient ecology, climate, and pathogen load in producing Chinese moral attitudes and emotions? Are ingredients of the good life in China different than ingredients of the good life elsewhere? How are children in China morally educated? How do findings from cultural neuroscience help us understand differences in the treatment of family members, or the treatment of strangers, in China and elsewhere? How do the protests in Hong Kong participate in, or stand apart from, the ongoing ethics of protest in historical China? The clear structure and accessible writing offer a rigorous assessment of the ways in which morality can be interpreted, shedding light on differences between China and Western cultures. The book also provides a timely window into Chinese forms of morality, and the pivotal role these play in social organization, family relationships, systems of government, emotion and cognition. Representing fields of study ranging from philosophy, linguistics, archaeology, history, and religion, to social psychology, neuroscience, clinical psychology, developmental psychology, and behavioral ecology, this is an essential text for students, academics, and others with wide interest in Chinese culture.

Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism

Author : April D. Hughes
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824888707
Total Pages : 199 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism by : April D. Hughes

Download or read book Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism written by April D. Hughes and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2021-05-31 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although scholars have long assumed that early Chinese political authority was rooted in Confucianism, rulership in the medieval period was not bound by a single dominant tradition. To acquire power, emperors deployed objects and figures derived from a range of traditions imbued with religious and political significance. Author April D. Hughes demonstrates how dynastic founders like Wu Zhao (Wu Zetian, r. 690–705), the only woman to rule China under her own name, and Yang Jian (Emperor Wen, r. 581–604), the first ruler of the Sui dynasty, closely identified with Buddhist worldly saviors and Wheel-Turning Kings to legitimate their rule. During periods of upheaval caused by the decline of the Dharma, worldly saviors arrived on earth to quell chaos and to rule and liberate their subjects simultaneously. By incorporating these figures into the imperial system, sovereigns were able to depict themselves both as monarchs and as buddhas or bodhisattvas in uncertain times. In this inventive and original work, Hughes traces worldly saviors—in particular Maitreya Buddha and Prince Moonlight—as they appeared in apocalyptic scriptures from Dunhuang, claims to the throne made by various rebel leaders, and textual interpretations and assertions by Yang Jian and Wu Zhao. Yang Jian associated himself with Prince Moonlight and took on the persona of a Wheel-Turning King whose offerings to the Buddha were not flowers and incense but weapons of war to reunite a long-fragmented empire and revitalize the Dharma. Wu Zhao was associated with several different worldly savior figures. In addition, she saw herself as the incarnation of a Wheel-Turning King for whom it was said the Seven Treasures manifested as material representations of his right to rule. Wu Zhao duly had the Seven Treasures created and put on display whenever she held audiences at court. The worldly savior figure allowed rulers to inhabit the highest role in the religious realm along with the supreme role in the political sphere. This incorporation transformed notions of Chinese imperial sovereignty, and associating rulers with a buddha or bodhisattva continued long after the close of the medieval period.

Chinese Buddhist Canons in the Age of Printing

Author : Darui Long
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429877749
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (298 download)

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Book Synopsis Chinese Buddhist Canons in the Age of Printing by : Darui Long

Download or read book Chinese Buddhist Canons in the Age of Printing written by Darui Long and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-21 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of the Chinese Buddhist Canon—the basic literature of Buddhism—does not have an eminent place in study either in China or in the Western World. For the contributors to this volume, their chapters are the result of decades of dedication to academic research, and they reveal many facets of the Buddhist Canon that were previously unstudied. This book originated in the first and second International Conferences on Chinese Buddhist Canon, and focuses on the communication of the Chinese Buddhist Canon through the medium of print. It enhances our knowledge of how the canon was collated, proofread and printed. This book was originally published as a special issue of Studies in Chinese Religions.

Selfless Offspring

Author : Keith N. Knapp
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824874552
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis Selfless Offspring by : Keith N. Knapp

Download or read book Selfless Offspring written by Keith N. Knapp and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2005-09-30 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Both Western and Chinese intellectuals have long derided filial piety tales as an absurd and grotesque variety of children’s literature. Selfless Offspring offers a fresh perspective on the genre, revealing the rich historical worth of these stories by examining them in their original context: the tumultuous and politically fragmented early medieval era (A.D. 100–600). At a time when no Confucian virtue was more prized than filial piety, adults were moved and inspired by tales of filial children. The emotional impact of even the most outlandish actions portrayed in the stories was profound, a measure of the directness with which they spoke to major concerns of the early medieval Chinese elite. In a period of weak central government and powerful local clans, the key to preserving a household’s privileged status was maintaining a cohesive extended family. Keith Knapp begins this far-ranging and persuasive study by describing two related historical trends that account for the narrative’s popularity: the growth of extended families and the rapid incursion of Confucianism among China’s learned elite. Extended families were better at maintaining their status and power, so patriarchs found it expedient to embrace Confucianism to keep their large, fragile households intact. Knapp then focuses on the filial piety stories themselves—their structure, historicity, origin, function, and transmission—and argues that most stem from the oral culture of these elite extended families. After examining collections of filial piety tales, known as Accounts of Filial Children, he shifts from text to motif, exploring the most common theme: the "reverent care" and mourning of parents. In the final chapter, Knapp looks at the relative burden that filiality placed on men and women and concludes that, although women largely performed the same filial acts as men, they had to go to greater extremes to prove their sincerity.

The A to Z of Medieval China

Author : Victor Cunrui Xiong
Publisher : A to Z Guide Series
ISBN 13 : 9780810875753
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (757 download)

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Book Synopsis The A to Z of Medieval China by : Victor Cunrui Xiong

Download or read book The A to Z of Medieval China written by Victor Cunrui Xiong and published by A to Z Guide Series. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The crucial period of Chinese history, 220-960, 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. The A to Z of Medieval China fills an urgent need for a standard reference tailored to the interest of Western academics and readers. The history of medieval China is related through the book's introductory essay, maps, a table of Dynastic Periods, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on key people, historical geography, arts, institutions, events, and other important terms.