Lost Books of Medieval China

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 100 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Lost Books of Medieval China by : Glen Dudbridge

Download or read book Lost Books of Medieval China written by Glen Dudbridge and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For 2000 years the state-run libraries of imperial China systematically assembled standard collections of books from the past and present. Although the collections themselves were lost through warfare and fire, the classified catalogues prepared by the Privy Director of Books were often used in compiling national bibliographies for the state-sponsored dynastic histories. Through these and other catalogues we learn much about books now lost and even the contents of lost books can be sampled through quotations in medieval encyclopedias. These lectures discuss the dynamics of loss and survival; the role of the imperial state in manipulating book culture through classification and selective preservation; the significance of lost books as an index of superseded knowledge and values. An analysis of two specific cases demonstrates the insights to be gained through textual reconstruction and the inadequacies of standard classifications in times past and present. Medieval Chinese literature emerges as a richer, more problematic, less docile body of work than the orthodoxies of the last millennium would wish.

Philosophy and Religion in Early Medieval China

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Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438431899
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis Philosophy and Religion in Early Medieval China by : Alan K. L. Chan

Download or read book Philosophy and Religion in Early Medieval China written by Alan K. L. Chan and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2010-08-04 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring a time of profound change, this book details the intellectual ferment after the fall of the Han dynasty. Questions about "heaven" and the affairs of the world that had seemed resolved by Han Confucianism resurfaced and demanded reconsideration. New currents in philosophy, religion, and intellectual life emerged to leave an indelible mark on the subsequent development of Chinese thought and culture. This period saw the rise of xuanxue ("dark learning" or "learning of the mysterious Dao"), the establishment of religious Daoism, and the rise of Buddhism. In examining the key ideas of xuanxue and focusing on its main proponents, the contributors to this volume call into question the often-presumed monolithic identity of this broad philosophical front. The volume also highlights the richness and complexity of religion in China during this period, examining the relationship between the Way of the Celestial Master and local, popular religious beliefs and practices, and discussing the relationship between religious Daoism and Buddhism.

The Rise and Fall of Imperial China

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691237514
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rise and Fall of Imperial China by : Yuhua Wang

Download or read book The Rise and Fall of Imperial China written by Yuhua Wang and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-11 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How social networks shaped the imperial Chinese state China was the world’s leading superpower for almost two millennia, falling behind only in the last two centuries and now rising to dominance again. What factors led to imperial China’s decline? The Rise and Fall of Imperial China offers a systematic look at the Chinese state from the seventh century through to the twentieth. Focusing on how short-lived emperors often ruled a strong state while long-lasting emperors governed a weak one, Yuhua Wang shows why lessons from China’s history can help us better understand state building. Wang argues that Chinese rulers faced a fundamental trade-off that he calls the sovereign’s dilemma: a coherent elite that could collectively strengthen the state could also overthrow the ruler. This dilemma emerged because strengthening state capacity and keeping rulers in power for longer required different social networks in which central elites were embedded. Wang examines how these social networks shaped the Chinese state, and vice versa, and he looks at how the ruler’s pursuit of power by fragmenting the elites became the final culprit for China’s fall. Drawing on more than a thousand years of Chinese history, The Rise and Fall of Imperial China highlights the role of elite social relations in influencing the trajectories of state development.

Memory in Medieval China

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9789004368620
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (686 download)

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Book Synopsis Memory in Medieval China by : Wendy Swartz

Download or read book Memory in Medieval China written by Wendy Swartz and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Memory in Medieval China explores memory as performed in various genres of writing, from poetry to anecdotes, from history to tomb epitaphs, thereby illuminating ways in which the memory of persons, events, dynasties, and literary styles was constructed and revised.

Lost in Translation

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Publisher : Delta
ISBN 13 : 0385319444
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (853 download)

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Book Synopsis Lost in Translation by : Nicole Mones

Download or read book Lost in Translation written by Nicole Mones and published by Delta. This book was released on 1999-05-11 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A novel of searing intelligence and startling originality, Lost in Translation heralds the debut of a unique new voice on the literary landscape. Nicole Mones creates an unforgettable story of love and desire, of family ties and human conflict, and of one woman's struggle to lose herself in a foreign land--only to discover her home, her heart, herself. At dawn in Beijing, Alice Mannegan pedals a bicycle through the deserted streets. An American by birth, a translator by profession, she spends her nights in Beijing's smoke-filled bars, and the Chinese men she so desires never misunderstand her intentions. All around her rushes the air of China, the scent of history and change, of a world where she has come to escape her father's love and her own pain. It is a world in which, each night as she slips from her hotel, she hopes to lose herself forever. For Alice, it began with a phone call from an American archaeologist seeking a translator. And it ended in an intoxicating journey of the heart--one that would plunge her into a nation's past, and into some of the most rarely glimpsed regions of China. Hired by an archaeologist searching for the bones of Peking Man, Alice joins an expedition that penetrates a vast, uncharted land and brings Professor Lin Shiyang into her life. As they draw closer to unearthing the secret of Peking Man, as the group's every move is followed, their every whisper recorded, Alice and Lin find shelter in each other, slowly putting to rest the ghosts of their pasts. What happens between them becomes one of the most breathtakingly erotic love stories in recent fiction. Indeed, Lost in Translation is a novel about love--between a nation and its past, between a man and a memory, between a father and a daughter. Its powerful impact confirms the extraordinary gifts of a master storyteller, Nicole Mones.

Efficacious Underworld

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Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824856023
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis Efficacious Underworld by : Cheeyun Lilian Kwon

Download or read book Efficacious Underworld written by Cheeyun Lilian Kwon and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2019-02-28 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ten Kings hanging scrolls at Tokyo’s Seikadō Bunko Art Museum are among the most resplendent renderings of the Buddhist purgatory extant, but their origin and significance have yet to be fully explored. Cheeyun Kwon unfurls this exquisite set of scrolls within the existing Ten Kings painting tradition while investigating textual, scriptural, archaeological, and visual materials from East Asia to shed light on its possible provenance. She constructs a model scheme of the paintings’ evolution based on more than five hundred works and reveals channels of popularization, mass production, and agglomeration. The earliest images of the Ten Kings are found in the tenth-century sūtra The Scripture on the Ten Kings, known to be the work of the monk Zangchuan. By the mid-twelfth century, typological conventions associated with the Ten Kings were widely established, and paintings depicting them, primarily large-scale and stand-alone, became popular export commodities, spreading via land and sea routes to the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago. An examination of materials in Korea suggests a unique development path for Ten Kings subject matter, and this—in conjunction with a close analysis of the Seikadō paintings—forms the core of Kwon’s book. Among the Korean works discussed is a woodblock edition of The Scripture on the Ten Kings from 1246. It is markedly different from its Chinese counterparts and provides strong evidence of the subject’s permutations during the Koryŏ period (918–1392), when Northern Song (960–1127) visual art and culture were avidly imported. In the Seikadō paintings, Northern Song figural, architectural, landscape, and decorative elements were acculturated to the Koryŏ milieu, situating them in the twelfth to early thirteenth centuries and among the oldest and most significant surviving examples of Koryŏ Buddhist painting. Efficacious Underworld fills major lacunae in Korean, East Asian, and Ten Kings painting traditions while illuminating Korea’s contribution to the evolution of a Buddhist theme on its trajectory across East Asia. With its rich set of color reproductions and detailed analysis of textual and visual materials, this volume will invite significant revision to previously held notions on Koryŏ painting.

The Destruction of the Medieval Chinese Aristocracy

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Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 168417077X
Total Pages : 301 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (841 download)

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Book Synopsis The Destruction of the Medieval Chinese Aristocracy by : Nicolas Tackett

Download or read book The Destruction of the Medieval Chinese Aristocracy written by Nicolas Tackett and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-10-26 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians have long been perplexed by the complete disappearance of the medieval Chinese aristocracy by the tenth century—the “great clans” that had dominated China for centuries. In this book, Nicolas Tackett resolves the enigma of their disappearance, using new, digital methodologies to analyze a dazzling array of sources. Tackett systematically mines thousands of funerary biographies excavated in recent decades—most of them never before examined by scholars—while taking full advantage of the explanatory power of Geographic Information System (GIS) methods and social network analysis. Tackett supplements these analyses with extensive anecdotes culled from epitaphs, prose literature, and poetry, bringing to life women and men who lived a millennium in the past. The Destruction of the Medieval Chinese Aristocracy demonstrates that the great Tang aristocratic families adapted to the social, economic, and institutional transformations of the seventh and eighth centuries far more successfully than previously believed. Their political influence collapsed only after a large number were killed during three decades of extreme violence following Huang Chao’s sack of the capital cities in 880 CE. 2015 James Breasted Prize, American Historical Association

China's Golden Age

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Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 9780195176650
Total Pages : 350 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (766 download)

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Book Synopsis China's Golden Age by : Charles D. Benn

Download or read book China's Golden Age written by Charles D. Benn and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2004 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fascinating and detailed profile, Benn paints a vivid picture of life in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), traditionally regarded as the golden age of China. 40 line illustrations.

Early Medieval China

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Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231531001
Total Pages : 745 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis Early Medieval China by : Wendy Swartz

Download or read book Early Medieval China written by Wendy Swartz and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-03-11 with total page 745 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative sourcebook builds a dynamic understanding of China's early medieval period (220–589) through an original selection and arrangement of literary, historical, religious, and critical texts. A tumultuous and formative era, these centuries saw the longest stretch of political fragmentation in China's imperial history, resulting in new ethnic configurations, the rise of powerful clans, and a pervasive divide between north and south. Deploying thematic categories, the editors sketch the period in a novel way for students and, by featuring many texts translated into English for the first time, recast the era for specialists. Thematic topics include regional definitions and tensions, governing mechanisms and social reality, ideas of self and other, relations with the unseen world, everyday life, and cultural concepts. Within each section, the editors and translators introduce the selected texts and provide critical commentary on their historical significance, along with suggestions for further reading and research.

Roaming into the Beyond: Representations of Xian Immortality in Early Medieval Chinese Verse

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Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004313699
Total Pages : 429 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)

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Book Synopsis Roaming into the Beyond: Representations of Xian Immortality in Early Medieval Chinese Verse by : Zornica Kirkova

Download or read book Roaming into the Beyond: Representations of Xian Immortality in Early Medieval Chinese Verse written by Zornica Kirkova and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-06-27 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Roaming into the Beyond Zornica Kirkova provides the first detailed study in a Western language of Daoism-inspired themes in early medieval Chinese poetry. She examines representations of Daoist xian immortality in a broad range of versified literature from the Han until the end of the Six Dynasties, focusing on the transformations of themes, concepts, and imagery within a wide literary and religious context. Adopting a more integrated approach, the author explores both the complex interaction between poetry and Daoist religion and the interrelations between various verse forms and poetic themes. This book not only enhances our understanding of the complexities of early medieval literature but also reevaluates the place of Daoist religious thought in the intellectual life of the period.

Medieval Chinese Medicine

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134291310
Total Pages : 477 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (342 download)

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Book Synopsis Medieval Chinese Medicine by : Christopher Cullen

Download or read book Medieval Chinese Medicine written by Christopher Cullen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-06-02 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades various versions of Chinese medicine have begun to be widely practised in Western countries, and the academic study of the subject is now well established. However, there are still few scholarly monographs that describe the history of Chinese medicine and there are none at all on the medieval period. This collection represents the kind of international collaboration of research teams, centres and individuals that is required to begin to study the source materials adequately. The first book in English to discuss this fascinating material in the century since the Dunhuang library was discovered, the text provides a unique and fascinating interpretation of Chinese medical history.

Medieval Chinese Medicine

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134291302
Total Pages : 566 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (342 download)

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Book Synopsis Medieval Chinese Medicine by : Christopher Cullen

Download or read book Medieval Chinese Medicine written by Christopher Cullen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-06-02 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades various versions of Chinese medicine have begun to be widely practised in Western countries, and the academic study of the subject is now well established. However, there are still few scholarly monographs that describe the history of Chinese medicine and there are none at all on the medieval period. This collection represents the kind of international collaboration of research teams, centres and individuals that is required to begin to study the source materials adequately. The first book in English to discuss this fascinating material in the century since the Dunhuang library was discovered, the text provides a unique and fascinating interpretation of Chinese medical history.

The A to Z of Medieval China

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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.

The Imperial Capitals of China

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Publisher : Abrams
ISBN 13 : 1468306057
Total Pages : 202 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (683 download)

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Book Synopsis The Imperial Capitals of China by : Arthur Cotterell

Download or read book The Imperial Capitals of China written by Arthur Cotterell and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2008-05-29 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This history of China’s imperial capital cities reveals “a picaresque chronicle of dynastic succession and court intrigue” across millennia (Publishers Weekly). Throughout the long history of Imperial China, emperors designed their capital cities in ways that reveal the heart of their dynasty. The ley lines of these cities reveal religious preoccupations, while the design of important buildings tells us much about the cultural influences of the period. The Shang Emperor of the third century B.C. made obsessive—and ultimately fatal—attempts to engage the Immortals with cosmologically pleasing urban planning. Meanwhile, the Tang capital at Chang'an betrays the striking creativity and cultural receptiveness that earmark the era as a literary and artistic golden age. And the Forbidden City of fifteenth century Beijing still stands as testament to Ming dynasty architectural virtuosity. Arthur Cotterell provides an inside view of the rich array of characters, political and ideological tensions, and technological genius that defined the imperial cities of China, as each in turn is uncovered, explored, and celebrated. The oldest continuous civilization in existence today stands to become the most influential.

When China Ruled the Seas

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Publisher : Open Road Media
ISBN 13 : 1504007360
Total Pages : 235 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis When China Ruled the Seas by : Louise Levathes

Download or read book When China Ruled the Seas written by Louise Levathes and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-12-02 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One hundred years before Columbus and his fellow Europeans began their voyages of discovery, fleets of giant junks commanded by the eunuch admiral Zheng He and filled with the empire’s finest porcelains, lacquerware, and silk ventured to the world’s “four corners.” Seven epic expeditions brought China’s treasure ships across the China Seas and Indian Ocean, from Japan to the spice island of Indonesia and the Malabar Coast of India, on to the rich ports of the Persian Gulf and down the East African coast, to China’s “El Dorado,” and perhaps even to Australia, three hundred years before Captain Cook’s landing. It was a time of exploration and expansion, but it ended in a retrenchment so complete that less than a century later, it was a crime to go to sea in a multimasted ship. In When China Ruled the Seas, Louise Levathes takes a fascinating and unprecedented look at this dynamic period in China’s enigmatic history, focusing on the country’s rise as a naval power that briefly brought half the world under its nominal authority. Drawing on eyewitness accounts, official Ming histories, and African, Arab, and Indian sources, many translated for the first time, Levathes brings readers inside China’s most illustrious scientific and technological era. She sheds new light on the historical and cultural context in which this great civilization thrived, as well as the perception of China by other contemporary cultures. Beautifully illustrated and engagingly written, When China Ruled the Seas is the fullest picture yet of the early Ming dynasty—the last flowering of Chinese culture before the Manchu invasion.

Tao Yuanming & Manuscript Culture

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Publisher : University of Washington Press
ISBN 13 : 9780295985534
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (855 download)

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Book Synopsis Tao Yuanming & Manuscript Culture by : Xiaofei Tian

Download or read book Tao Yuanming & Manuscript Culture written by Xiaofei Tian and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As medieval Chinese manuscripts were copied and recopied through the centuries, both mistakes and deliberate editorial changes were introduced. Xiaofei Tian shows how readers not only experience authors but "produce" them by shaping texts to their interpretation, focusing on the evolution over the centuries of the reclusive poet Tao Yuanming into a figure of epic stature.

Books on Fire

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Publisher : Lucien X. POLASTRON
ISBN 13 : 9781594771675
Total Pages : 396 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (716 download)

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Book Synopsis Books on Fire by : Lucien X. Polastron

Download or read book Books on Fire written by Lucien X. Polastron and published by Lucien X. POLASTRON. This book was released on 2007-08-13 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost as old as the idea of the library is the urge to destroy it. Author Lucien X. Polastron traces the history of this destruction, examining the causes for these disasters, the treasures that have been lost, and where the surviving books, if any, have ended up. Books on Fire received the 2004 Societe des Gens de Lettres Prize for Nonfiction/History in Paris.