China Books

Experts in Chinese history explore the history of Beijing, its evolution from Kublai Khan's seat of power to the capital of the Ming Dynasty. Beijing highlights the current developments in the city as it prepares for the 2008 Olympics. Maps, paintings and photographs detail the more than 600-year evolution of this unique and vibrant city. Focussing on the lives of ordinary people as well as rulers, the authors highlight the controversial destruction of Beijing's historic districts and the construction of Olympic venues. About the authors LILLIAN LI is Professor of History at Swarthmore College, USA. ALISON DRAY-NOVEY is Professor of History at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, USA. HAILI KONG is Professor of Chinese Language, Literature, and Film at Swarthmore College, USA. (For this item please quote stock ID 28533) ISBN: 9781403964731

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Since its discovery in 1974, the world has marvelled at the amazing size and detail of the First Emperor of China?s monumental legacy. This 8,000-man life-size army of soldiers and horses in full battle gear is one of humankind?s greatest artworks. The detail with which each face, each braided head, each saddled horse was crafted inspires many questions as to who, how, and why? This colourful introduction to the great find in Xi?an answers those questions and invites further research. (For this item please quote stock ID 3225) ISBN: 9789622174870

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'This reference work breaks new ground in the scope of its coverage; both historic and geographic; its 32 chronologies span from 2,000,000 B.C.E. to 1998 C.E. and include not only China, Japan, and India, as expected, but also Malaysia and the countries composing Southeast Asia and Central Asia. . .This one-of-a-kind work belongs in all libraries where patrons have an interest in Asia'. ? Library Journal AASL, PLA, Appearing in University Press Books Selected for Public and Secondary School Libraries 'This volume offers chronologies for the countries of Asia from the paleolithic era through 1998. . .Although academic libraries may seem to be the natural home for this comprehensive chronology, it would be a good choice for reference collections in large public libraries as well'. - Booklist Containing more information on Asian culture than any other English-language reference work, Columbia Chronologies of Asian History & Culture is the first of its kind: a set of more than 30 chronologies for all the countries of Asia - East, South, Southeast, and Central - from the Paleolithic era through 1998. Each entry is clearly dated and, unlike most chronologies found in standard history texts, the entries are complete and detailed enough to provide virtually a sequential history of the vast and rich span of Asian cultures. The contributing writers and editors have ensured the book´s usefulness to general readers by identifying individuals and groups, locating places and regions, explaining events and movements, and defining unfamiliar words and concepts. The 32 chronologies on individual countries, in conjunction with a detailed index, allow readers to find specific information quickly and efficiently, whether they seek the date for the invention of the iron plow or gunpowder, the fall of the Han Dynasty in China, or Ho Chi Minh´s declarations of Vietnamese independence. The Columbia Chronologies of Asian History & Culture features: >Three discrete chronologies on (1) Politics/History, (2) Art/Culture/Religion, & (3) Science/Economics/Everyday Life for each of Asia´s three major cultures - China, India, & Japan - as well as a combined chronology for each of the other nations >Detailed entries of thousands of historical events as well as important milestones in religion, philosophy, literature, & the arts >Entries on technological developments & natural events (famines, floods, etc.) affecting the lives of ordinary people >Authoritative & accessibly written entries by a team of Asian scholars from Columbia, Harvard, & other major research universities. The book also gives full recognition to religious, intellectual, artistic, and general cultural achievements, as well as to scientific, technological, industrial, agricultural, and economic developments. Concise yet complete, it will stand as an indispensable reference work in the field of Asian studies. (For this item please quote stock ID 4647) ISBN: 9780231110044

This is a history of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia from the time of the first inhabitants of the region up to the break up of the Mongol Empire in 1260 AD. Inner Eurasia, as the author defines it, comprises most of the former Soviet Union and Russia's huge territories in Siberia; Russia's former empire in Central Asia; China's central Asian empire; and Mongolia, both the parts within China and those within the Mongolian People's Republic. The author presents Inner Eurasia as a coherent region with an underlying unity in geography and history despite its cultural and ecological variety. This volume, the first of two surveying this region, charts developments from the Old Stone Age, through changes under such peoples as the Scythians, the Huns and the Turks, to the emergence of an identifiable Russia - the society from which modern Russia and Ukraine have evolved. The book sets political events in the broadest context of social and economic change, linking evolution to the vast geography of the territories it describes. Together with Volume II, covering the period up to the present, the work represents the most thorough, up-to-date study of this fascinating and much misunderstood region of the world. (For this item please quote stock ID 5773) ISBN: 9780631208143

who thronged the capital city of Chang?an, but were also some of the earliest cross-dressers in history! They lavished attention on their coiffures and were highly sophisticated in their use of cosmetics. Based on an exhibition in Xi?an, this books includes 40 colour photographs and informative text on the fashions of the time. (For this item please quote stock ID 5976) ISBN: 9789622174610

John King Fairbank (1907-1991) was best known to the public as the dean of Chinese studies in the United States. John Hersey, Hanu Reischauer, Harrison Salisbury, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., are among the more than 125 friends, students, and colleagues to contribute to this volume. Each author attempts to capture the essence of the Fairbank he or she knew. The resulting pieces are alternately incisive, affectionate, intimate, deeply affecting, and hilariously funny. Fairbank Remembered is an endearing and moving portrait of America's doyen on China. (For this item please quote stock ID 5997) ISBN: 9780674291539

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A research guide to the extensive materials on the Chinese Communist Party gathered by Nationalist authorities before 1949 and currently stored in government institutions in Taiwan. (For this item please quote stock ID 6525) ISBN: 9780892640249

These essays are comparative studies of developments in China in the context of contemporaneous developments in Europe. Features in China?s history, society, geography, and developments in technology, industry, demography and literature are scrutinised and provide unique insights into developments in China spanning a thousand years. (For this item please quote stock ID 6732) ISBN: 9780646204130

China in the reign of the Ch?ien-lung emperor was confident, prosperous, internally at peace, unchallenged at its frontiers. The Chinese self-image in the eighteenth century is as close to the historical reality from which it was abstracted as any idealized constructs are likely to be. This book describes the conditions that characterized Ch?ing society during its glory days in the eighteenth century. (For this item please quote stock ID 6951) ISBN: 9780892640270

This study of cities on China?s inland frontiers from ancient times to the present is the first work to explore the nature of urbanism on Chinese frontiers. 'Not only specialists, but anyone with an interest in a wide range of areas (China, Central Asia, South and Southeast Asia) and disciplines (geography, anthropology, history, urban studies) will benefit greatly from this enormously stimulating book. Specialists will welcome the breadth of the author?s inquiry, the challenging theses put forward, and the remarkable collection of new material, based on fieldwork in remote areas of China rarely studied by Westerners. General readers will be delighted by the rich array of illustrations and maps that illuminate the author?s arguments and provide a fascinating introduction to China?s multicultural frontier' ? Dru C. Gladney, University of Hawaii. 'Illustrated with excellent diagrammatic maps and photographs, Gaubatz?s interdisciplinary study examines the foundation, historical development, and distinctive features of five cities on China?s inner Asian and southwest frontier ... This is an important contribution to the study of Chinese cities and China?s frontiers' ? Choice. (For this item please quote stock ID 7314) ISBN: 9780804723992

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Chinaprovides an absorbing and authoritative account of China and all things Chinese - geography, politics, customs, food and drink, the arts, and a rich and colorful history, from ancient times through to the momentous events of the past decade. Brian Hook and his team of expert contributors have thoroughly revised and updated the Encyclopedia to take full account of the most recent developments in China, from the economic reforms and increased freedoms of the early 1980s to the crisis of 1989 and its aftermath. The book is thus a uniquely broad-ranging account of China for everyone with an interest in the area, which will appeal both as a highly attractive illustrated reference book and as an invaluable source of practical information on a developing superpower. 'Like a Chinese banquet, the Encyclopedia has a great deal to offer and something for every individual taste ... no one can complain that any field has been neglected ... It is beautifully produced and presented...should grace the desk of every interested scholar' - Edmund S.K. Fung, Journal of Oriental Studies. '... a welcome addition to the literature ... the encyclopedia's authoritative coverage and reasonable price make it a useful addition to most libraries' - Hwa-Wei Lee, American Reference Books Annual. (For this item please quote stock ID 8091) ISBN: 9780521355940

A work unique in the sweep of its design and scope, intended expressly for the general reader interested in human history and culture, this is a vivid panoramic survey of the vast course of Chinese civilisation from prehistory to 1850, when the old China began the agonising transition to the new. Historical surveys of China tend to be dynasty-by-dynasty chronicles with a profusion of names and dates and occaisional cultural tidbits, or to concentrate on the period from earliest times to the Han dynasty (or the T?ang), giving only scant coverage to the last 1000 years. China?s Imperial Past is different. Not only does it treat the three major periods of Chinese history at roughly equal length, weaving all their complexity into a balanced, integrated whole, but it gives ample space to China?s magnificent literary and artistic achievements. The author?s approach is primarily interpretive, emphasising patterns of change and development rather than factual details, but he never loses sight of the particularities that made traditional Chinese civilisation one of the richest in human history. Especially notable are the many translations of Chinese poetry, among them more than 20 exquisite poems from the great poets of the T?ang. The author divides Chinese history into three major epochs: a formative age, from high antiquity to the unification of China under the Ch?in in the third century B.C.; an early imperial age, from the Han dynasty (202 B.C.-A.D. 220) through the T?ang (618-907) and its breakdown; and a later imperial age, from the Sung dynasty (960-1279) to the mid-19th century. Each major epoch is considered in topical chapters on general history, political institutions, socioeconomic organisation, religion and thought, and literature and the arts. A brief Epilogue comments on aspects of Chinese history since 1850. The book includes 47 plates, eight maps, and various charts, as well as appendixes and unusually detailed chronological table, notes on the Chinese language, and suggestions for supplementary reading. (For this item please quote stock ID 8356) ISBN: 9780804723534

China boasts of the world's oldest continuous historical records, and the study of history has always been one of the most respected fields in her scholarly tradition. One of the best ways to understand Chinese culture is therefore through a study of Chinese views on and approaches to history. The twelve articles collected in this anthology are the work of leading Chinese and Western specialists. They write to illuminate the various aspects of Chinese history and historiography, and in that process, throw light on China's multi-faceted cultural heritage. (For this item please quote stock ID 8730) ISBN: 9789622012721

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W. Scott Morton provides illuminating background information and rich insights into recent developments in China. He has also revised the volume throughout, bringing up to date the sections on literature, law, the family, housing, and the role of women. For Westerners - whether students, travelers, or interested readers, there is no better introduction to China, past and present, than this concise yet beautifully written volume. (For this item please quote stock ID 11024) ISBN: 9780071412797

Whatever aspect of China interests the reader, this beautifully illustrated volume will provide a thorough and thought-provoking look at this complex and often volatile country. Said to be the oldest continuous civilization, China is a country full of contradictions; it is at once tranquil and dramatic, unified and diverse. China: Ancient Culture, Modern Land gives the reader the experience of living in China today as well as an overview of ancient Chinese history and culture. (For this item please quote stock ID 11084) ISBN: 9780806126838

The central character in Susan Naquin's extraordinary new book is the city of Peking during the Ming and Qing periods. Using the city's temples as her point of entry, Naquin carefully excavates Peking's varied public arenas, the city's transformation over five centuries, its human engagements, and its rich cultural imprint. This study shows how modern Beijing's glittering image as China's great and ancient capital came into being and reveals the shifting identities of a much more complex past, one whose rich social and cultural history Naquin splendidly evokes. Temples, by providing a place where diverse groups could gather without the imprimatur of family or state, made possible a surprising assortment of community-building and identity-defining activities. By revealing how religious establishments of all kinds were used for fairs, markets, charity, tourism, politics, and leisured sociability, Naquin shows their decisive impact on Peking and, at the same time, illuminates their little-appreciated role in Chinese cities generally. Lacking most of the conventional sources for urban history, she has relied particularly on a trove of commemorative inscriptions that express ideas about the relationship between human beings and gods, about community service and public responsibility, about remembering and being remembered. The result is a book that will be essential reading in the field of Chinese studies for years to come. (For this item please quote stock ID 11135) ISBN: 9780520219915

Year by year index to Chinese dates with cyclical characters and parallel dynasties. (For this item please quote stock ID 11562)

Rulers and year names of all the principle dynasties with the early dating corrected. (For this item please quote stock ID 11564)

This third volume of Colin Ronan?s abridgement of Joseph Needham?s monumental work is devoted to Chinese contributions to nautical science and technology. In the original text, these subjects were dealt with in separate parts; in this abridgement they are coveniently presented in a single unified account. The book opens with an examination of what is perhaps the greatest single contribution of Chinese civilisation to nautical science, the magnetic compass. Then follow chapters on navigation, nautical history, and voyages and discoveries, together with design and methods of construction of Chinese shipping. A final chapter looks at nautical technology in war and peace. In the original text, the material covered here appeared in Volume IV Part I and Volume IV Part 3. In abridging the text, the opportunity has been taken to include the official Pin Yin transliterations alongside those of the original work. Contents: >List of illustrations >List of tables >Preface >1. Magnetism & electricity >2. Nautical technology >3. Voyages & discovieries >4. Navigation >5. Propulsion >6. Steering >7. Techniques of peace & war afloat >Table of Chinese dynasties >Bibliography >Index (For this item please quote stock ID 12201) ISBN: 9780521315609

Joseph Needham?s Science & Civilisation in China is a monumental piece of scholarship which breaks new ground in presenting to the Western reader a detailed and coherent account of the development of science, technology and medicine in China from the earliest times until the advent of the Jesuits and the beginnings of modern science in the late seventeenth century. It is a vast work, necessarily more suited to the scholar and research worker than the general reader. This paperback version, abridged and re-written by Colin Ronan, makes this extremely important study accessible to a wider public. The present book covers the material treated in Volumes I and II of Dr Needham?s original work. The reader is introduced to the country of China, its history, geography and language, and an account is given of how scientific knowledge travelled between China and Europe. The major part of the book is then devoted to the history of scientific thought in China itself. Beginning with ancient times, it describes the milieu in which arose the schools of the Confucians, Taoists, Mohists, Logicians and Legalists. We are thus brought on to the fundamental ideas which dominated scientific thinking in the Chinese Middle Ages, to the doctrines of the Two Forces (Yin and Yang) and the Five Elements (wu hsing), to the impact of the sceptical tradition and Buddhist and Neo-Confucian thought. Contents: >List of illustrations >List of tables >Preface >1. Introduction >2. The Chinese language >3. The geography of China >4. Chinese history: (i) the pre-Imperial Ages >5. Chinese history: (ii) the empire of all under heaven >6. The travelling of science between China & Europe >7. Confucianism >8. Taoism >9. The Mohists & Logicians >10. The fundamental ideas of Chinese science >11. The pseudo-sciences & the sceptical tradition >12. Chin & Tang Taoists & Sung Neo-Confucians >13. Sung & Ming idealists & the last great figures of Chinese naturalism >14. Buddhist thought >15. The Legalists >16. Human law & the laws of nature >Bibliography >Index (For this item please quote stock ID 12202) ISBN: 9780521292863

Three previous volumes of this series by Colin Ronan are each available in hardback as well as paperback. Volume I introduces the reader to the country of China: its history, geography and language. The major part of this book is devoted to the history of scientific thought in China itself. In Volume II, the first section deals with mathematics, and this is followed by a section dealing with mathematics. Then follow sections on astronomy, meteorology and the earth sciences. The volume closes with a description of various aspects of Chinese physics. Volume III looks in some detail at one of the greatest contributions the Chinese made to physics - the discovery of the magnetic compass. Contents: >List of illustrations >List of tables >Preface >1. Engineers: their status, tools & materials >2. Basic mechanical principles >3. Mechanical toys & machines described in Chinese works >4. Vehicles for land transport & design of an efficient horse harness >5. Clockwork: six hidden centuries >6. Vertical & horizontal mountings, windmills & aeronautics >Bibliography >Table of Chinese dynastics >Index (For this item please quote stock ID 12203) ISBN: 9780521338738

A brief introductory text that emphasizes cultural history while also covering political and economic history. Chapters are brief and each major Chinese dynasty, Japanese Shogunate, or other discrete period is treated in a separate chapter. Encounters with the West (beginning in the 16th century) are extensively covered. (For this item please quote stock ID 12361) ISBN: 9780155055698

Brand new edition of this fascinating look at the numerous inventions - today taken for granted - which all originated in China but have long since been adopted by the West. Covering three millennia of invention in science and technology from agriculture to astronomy, medicine to mathematics, exploration to engineering, The Genius of China is an accessible and fascinating look at the origins of many of the key technologies of the modern world. Hundreds of these, including the compass, gunpowder, the spinning wheel, paper money, the fishing reel, the stirrup, the parachute, playing cards, the decimal system, the blast furnace, were pioneered and first put to use in ancient and medieval China before being brought to the West. Without these crucial inventions the world would simply not be as it is today. Fully illustrated with striking photographs, rare archive pictures and diagrams. (For this item please quote stock ID 13260) ISBN: 9781853755828

This fifth volume of Colin Ronan?s abridgement of Joseph Needham?s monumental work is concerned with the staggering civil engineering feats made in early and medieval China. No other country did more, both as to scale and skill, than China. The book opens with an account of the road system, which compared not unfavourably with that of the Roman Empire. Naturally, the Great Wall of China is covered in some detail within the social context of walls, which mark, more than any other structure, the basic features of the Chinese communities. The Chinese genius of town planning and achievements in hydraulic engineering are covered in later chapters. This book concludes the abridgement of the Chinese engineering, and provides many clues as to the influence of Chinese innovation on Western engineering trends. Contents: >List of illustrations >List of tables >Preface >1. Roads >2. Walls, & the Great Wall >3. Building technology >4. Bridges >5. Hydraulic engineering (I), control, construction & maintenance of waterways >6. Hydraulic engineering (II), water-raising machinery & the use of water as a power source >Bibliography >Table of Chinese dynasties >Index (For this item please quote stock ID 14484) ISBN: 9780521467735

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In an extraordinary feat of synthesis, Patricia Buckley Ebrey gives an engaging, full, gloriously illustrated account of over 8000 years of Chinese civilisation - from prehistoric times through the rise of Confucianism, Buddhism and the imperial dynasties to the modern communist state. Everything appears, from the influence of leading Chinese historians, poets, novelists and dramatists to the impact of key philosophical and religious ideas, art forms, and the Mongul, Manchu and Western intrusions. Contents: >1. The origins of Chinese civiliéation: Neolithic period to the western Zhou dynasty (animal & human imagery in bronze vessels) >2. Philosophical foundations: the eastern Zhou period >3. The creation of the bureaucratic empire: the Qin and Han dynasties >4. Buddhism, aristocracy, & alien rulers: the age of division (early Buddhist art) >5. A cosmopolitan empire: the Tang dynasty >6. Shifting south: the Song dynasty (landscape painting) >7. Alien rule: the Liao, Jin, & Yuan dynasties >8. The limits of autocracy: the Mind dynasty >9. Manchus & imperialism: the Qing dynasty >10. Taking action: the early twentieth century >11. Radical reunification: the People's Republic >Epilogue > Chronology >Notes, further reading >Index Key Features: >Enormous range, over 8000 years of Chinese history, written by a leading specialist >Special panel features on influential ideas, issues, people, events & places >Over 220 pictures, including nearly 30 maps 'Patricia Ebrey?s Illustrated History of China is a fine book, sumptuous and scholarly. With great economy of text, it outlines the major elements and changes in four millennia of Chinese history and social life; the art work and photographs, skilfully chosen and admirably reproduced, both illuminate the text and supplement it.' - Jonathan Spence, Yale University (For this item please quote stock ID 16086) ISBN: 9780521669917

This 1637 classic on the history of traditional Chinese technology, profusely illustrated with 152 original woodcuts, covers, among other subjects, agriculture, textiles, mining, metallurgy, chemical engineering, boat-building and weapons manufacturing. Copious annotations - rich in scientific explanation and historical background - help round out an impressive sourcebook that belongs in the library of anyone interested in the history of mankind's technological progress. (For this item please quote stock ID 16105) ISBN: 9780486295930

This is a fascinating entrée to traditional Chinese concepts permeating every field of mental endeavor - from literature to astrology to mathematics. There are lengthy discussions of li, qi, shu, yin, yang, wuxing, and yijing. Additional chapters consider Chinese mathematics, astronomy and astrology, alchemy, magic, elixirs, and the search for immortality. A fascinating book for students of mathematics, astronomy, the history of science, and anyone interested in Chinese culture. (For this item please quote stock ID 16113) ISBN: 9780486414454

The notion of an ancient and continuously existing Great Wall is proven a myth in this fascinating account of the strategic and political context behind the Chinese decision to build walls as fortified defences during the Ming Dynasty. (For this item please quote stock ID 16152) ISBN: 9780521427074

The incredible hidden history of the world's rarest and most valuable gem stone. Diamonds, sapphires and rubies are commonly thought to be the world's most valuable gemstones but there is another that is even more precious. It is Imperial Green Jade, or jadeite. The stone's prestige derives from its intense beauty and extraordinary scarcity. Almost all of the world's jadeite comes from one place: a valley in the shadow of the Himalayas, buried deep in the bedrock of the most remote mining area in the world. Since its discovery nearly 2,000 years ago, Imperial Green Jade has been worshipped, ingested and traded. Inspired by legends of a gemstone 'that glowed as if lit by a hidden flame', armies have waged wars to seize its source, First Ladies have flaunted it and Hollywood stars have spent fortunes on pieces stolen from the tombs of Chinese Emperors. Royal collectors believed it could make them immortal. Warlords ground it into powder and drunk it as an elixir. Revolutionaries exploited it to fund coups and finance wars. For European explorers, it was legendary. Those who returned from Burma in the fifteenth century came with stories of a kingdom built entirely from the green stone - a place they called the 'Lost Valley of Capelan'. Today foreigners are barred from the place in northern Burma known as 'Jadeland', where thousands of soldiers guard the dictatorship's treasures. In order to be the first Europeans ever to get there, Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark had to persuade Rangoon's generals to escort them. This book reveals how they did so and in its final chapters takes the reader on a terrifying journey to the 'Lost Valley of Capelan'. What they discovered was jadeite's biggest secret: a human disaster of biblical proportions. The Stone of Heaven brilliantly combines original historical research, travelogue and investigative journalism to relate for the first time this hidden history. It is the story of a gem that changed the lives of all who owned it and shaped the destiny of nations that sought to control its source. (For this item please quote stock ID 16372) ISBN: 9780297645740

A common misconception holds that Marco Polo 'opened up' a closed and recalcitrant 'Orient' to the West. However, this sweeping history covering 4,000 years of international relations from the perspective of China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia shows that the region´s extensive involvement in world affairs began thousands of years ago. In a time when the writing of history is increasingly specialized, Warren I. Cohen has made a bold move against the grain. In broad but revealing brushstrokes, he paints a huge canvas of East Asia´s place in world affairs throughout four millennia. Just as Cohen thinks broadly across time, so too, he defines the boundaries of East Asia liberally, looking beyond China, Japan, and Korea to include Southeast Asia. In addition, Cohen stretches the scope of international relations beyond its usual limitations to consider the vital role of cultural and economic exchanges. Within this vast framework, Cohen explores the system of Chinese domination in the ancient world, the exchanges between East Asia and the Islamic world from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, and the emergence of a European-defined international system in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The book covers the new imperialism of the 1890s, the Manchurian crisis of the early 1930s, the ascendancy of Japan, the trials of World War II, the drama of the Cold War, and the fleeting 'Asian Century' from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. East Asia at the Center is replete with often-overlooked or little-known facts, such as: >A record of persistent Chinese imperialism in the region >Tibet´s status as a major power from the 7th to the 9th centuries C.E., when it frequently invaded China & decimated Chinese armies >Japan´s profound dependence on Korea for its early cultural development >The enormous influence of Indian cuisine on that of China >Egyptian & Ottoman military aid to their Muslim brethren in India & Sumatra against European powers >Extensive Chinese sea voyages to Arabia & East Africa - long before such famous Westerners as Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus took to the seas East Asia at the Center´s expansive historical view puts the trials and advances of the past four millennia into perspective, showing that East Asia has often been preeminent on the world stage - and conjecturing that it might be so again in the not-so-distant future. 'Warren I. Cohen is one of the most perceptive, knowledgeable and prolific historians in the world today on the subjects of China and East Asia. He writes with the clarity of a journalist and the wide-ranging authority of a scholar.' - James Mann, foreign-affairs columnist for the Los Angeles Times, author of About Face 'An ambitious project that takes much courage, stamina, and intellectual acumen to undertake. It is evident that Cohen has all three.' - Akira Iriye, Harvard University (For this item please quote stock ID 17209) ISBN: 9780231101097

The influence of ancient China reverberates to this day throughout all the great Asian cultures. Splendours of Ancient China explores the enormous wealth and artistic achievements of this magnificent civilization in lavish colour photographs of its buildings, works of art, cities and landscapes. The wide-ranging text provides an historical framework to the era, from its beginnings in the Neolithic age to the glories of the Sui and Tang dynasties of the Second Empire (907AD). This is followed by an examination of every aspect of social organisation and daily life in ancient China, including religious beliefs, politics, morality, the family, entertainments and war. The reader is also taken on a guided tour of some of the most important archaeological sites, including the famous terracotta army. Splendours of Ancient China constitutes a panoramic and splendid treasury of Chinese cultural achievement. (For this item please quote stock ID 17221) ISBN: 9780500510247

The author of the international bestsellers Watching the Tree and Falling Leaves has always been fascinated by proverbs and their importance and use in China. The majority of Chinese proverbs derive from the first century B.C., when the First Emperor of all China established his leadership over the whole country and its warring fiefdoms. In ancient China, a scholar's conversation would be studded with appropriate sayings, and a man's status would be defined by his use and knowledge of proverbs. In modern China, much of this is still true, and proverbs are used constantly. Adeline Yen Mah introduces us to the rich picture of the first century BC when, after long wars between states, China was finally united and the richness of its literature and art could flourish. She portrays the leaders, the plots and the counter-revolutions with great vividness and liveliness so that even those ignorant of Chinese history become absorbed. And as in all her other books, she relates the historical episodes and the proverbs derived from these to experiences in her own life. One of the major expressions of this age was of course the First Emperor's tomb with its terracotta soldiers, of horses and carriages. The re-discovery of this monument - now open to us all - and Adeline Yen Mah's own experiences there - are extraordinary. Adeline Yen Mah was born in Tianjin, studied in London, and now works and lives in California. She is married with two children. (For this item please quote stock ID 18550) ISBN: 9780007124510

Chinese Reportage details for the first time in English the creation and evolution of a distinctive literary genre in twentieth-century China. Reportage literature, while sharing traditional journalism's commitment to the accurate, nonfictional portrayal of experience, was largely produced by authors outside the official news media. In identifying the literary merit of this genre and establishing its significance in China's leftist cultural legacy, Charles Laughlin reveals important biases that impede Western understanding of China and, at the same time, supplies an essential chapter in Chinese cultural history. Laughlin traces the roots of reportage (or baogao wenxue) to the travel literature of the Qing dynasty but shows that its flourishing was part of the growth of Chinese communism in the twentieth century. In a modern Asian context critical of capitalism and imperialism, reportage offered the promise of radicalising writers through a new method of literary practice and the hope that this kind of writing could in turn contribute to social revolution and China's national self-realisation. Chinese Reportage explores the wide range of social engagement depicted in this literature: witnessing historic events unfolding on city streets; experiencing brutal working conditions in 1930s Shanghai factories; struggling in the battlefields and trenches of the war of resistance against Japan, the civil war, and the Korean war; and participating in revolutionary rural, social, and economic transformation. Laughlin's close readings emphasise the literary construction of social space over that of character and narrative structure, a method that brings out the critique of individualism and humanism underlying the genre's aesthetics. Chinese Reportage recaptures a critical aspect of leftist culture in China with far-reaching implications for historians and sociologists as well as literary scholars. ?Based on superior scholarship and written in a pleasant, yet profound style, Laughlin's sensitive readings and surprising interpretations of little-known but highly intriguing texts open up important new vistas for all scholars of literature who oppose the restrictive concept of 'universal literary values' and seek to replace it with methods that emphasise and bring out cultural and historical differences. By analysing the aesthetics of reportage, Laughlin demonstrates that this unique and important genre of modern Chinese writing was much more than just a tool for political agitation, but that it provided its substantial readership with a genuinely literary experience.' ? Michel Hockx, SOAS, University of London ?This is the first full-length English study of Chinese reportage, following its development from the turn of the century to the founding of the People's Republic. Laughlin delineates the genesis and transformation of a genre that had a powerful impact on the making of Chinese literary and political modernity, and he inquires into the treacherous terms by means of which Chinese writers sought to understand reality and its representation. Theoretically provocative and historically engaged, this book will be of tremendous significance for anyone interested in modern Chinese literature, history, journalism, and politics.? ? David Der-wei Wang, Columbia University Charles Laughlin is Assistant Professor of Chinese Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University. (For this item please quote stock ID 18915) ISBN: 9780822329718

(For this item please quote stock ID 18979) ISBN: 9787532528257

In this original study of the Portuguese Empire in the East, the Estado da India, George Souza looks in detail at the activities of Macao. His aim is to enquire into the nature of Portuguese society in China and the South China Sea and explain why the political and economic activities of the Portuguese crown did not inhibit the growth of local entrepreneurial trade. He also examines the nature of Portuguese maritime trade in Asia and analyses the focal role of Macao as an adjunct to the Canton market. The operations of Portuguese private merchants, the so-called ?country traders?, are described and tellingly assessed in the wider context of the economic development of China and Southeast Asia in the 17th and 18th centuries. (For this item please quote stock ID 20012) ISBN: 9780521531351

This volume of the Cambridge History of China considers the political, military, social, and economic developments of the Ch?ing empire to 1800. The period begins with the end of the resurgent Ming dynasty, covered in volumes 7 and 8, and ends with the beginning of the collapse of the imperial system in the 19th century, described in Volume 10. Taken together, the 10 chapters elucidate the complexities of the dynamic interactions between emperors and their servitors, between Manchus and non-Manchu populations, between various elite groups, between competing regional interests, between merchant networks and agricultural producers, between rural and urban interests, and, at work among all these tensions, between the old and new. This volume presents the changes underway in this period prior to the advent of Western imperialist military power. Features: >Provides the only detailed accounts in English of the emperors? reigns & the social history of eighteenth-century China >Offers sophisticated consideration of the character & implications of Manchu control of the Ch?ing empire >Contains analyses of all strata & sectors of Chinese society by leading experts in their specialisations Contents: >State building before 1644 (Gertraude Roth Li) >The Ch?ing conquest under the Shun-chih reign (Jerry Dennerline) >The K?ang-hsi reign (Jonathan Spence) >The Yung-cheng reign (Madeleine Zelin) >The Ch?ien-lung reign (Alexander Woodside) >The conquest elites of the Ch'ing empire (Pamela Crossley) >The social roles of literati (Benjamin Elman) >Women, families, & gender relations (Susan Mann) >Social stability & social change (William Rowe) >Economic developments (Ramon Myers & Yeh-chien Wang) (For this item please quote stock ID 20015) ISBN: 9780521243346

Dr Joseph Needham?s account of the Chinese achievement in science and technology will stand as one of the great works of our time. It has been acclaimed by specialists in both East and West and also by readers with wider and more general interests. The text, based on research of a high critical quality, is supported by many hundreds of illustrations and is imbued with a warm appreciation of China. Volume I is an introductory volume, in which Dr Needham prepares his readers for the study of a whole human culture. He begins by examining the structure of the Chinese language; he reviews the geography of China and the long history of its people, and discusses the scientific contacts which have occurred throughout the centuries, between Europe and East Asia. Contents: >List of illustrations >List of tables >Contents of the subsequent volumes of Science & Civilisation in China >1. Preface >2. Plan of the work >3. Bibliographical notes >4. Geographical introduction >5. Historical introduction: I. The pre-imperial phase >6. Historical introduction: II. The empire of all under heaven >7. Conditions of travel of scientific ideas & techniques between China & Europe >Bibliographies >General index. (For this item please quote stock ID 20149) ISBN: 9780521057998

The second volume of Dr Joseph Needham?s great work Science & Civilisation in China is devoted to the history of scientific thought. Beginning with ancient times, it describes the Confucian milieu in which arose the organic naturalism of the great Taoist school, the scientific philosophy of the Mohists and Logicians, and the quantitative materialism of the Legalists. Thus we are brought on to the fundamental ideas which dominated scientific thinking in the Chinese middle ages. The author opens his discussion by considering the remote and pictographic origins of words fundamental in scientific discourse, and then sets forth the influential doctrines of the Two Forces and the Five Elements. Subsequently he writes of the important sceptical tradition, the effects of Buddhist thought, and the Neo-Confucian climax of Chinese naturalism. Last comes a discussion of the conception of Laws of Nature in China and the West. Contents: >List of illustrations >List of tables >List of abbreviations >Acknowledgements >Author?s note >8. Introduction >9. The Ju Chia (Confucians) & Confucianism >10. The Tao Chia (Taoists) & Taoism >11. The Mo Chia (Mohists) & the Ming Chia (Logicians) >12. The fundamental ideas of Chinese science >14. The Pseudo-Sciences & the sceptical tradition >15. Buddhist thought >16. Chin & Thang Taoists, & Sung Neo-Confucians >17. Sung & Ming idealists, & the last great figures of indigenous naturalism >18. Human law & the laws of nature in China & the West >Bibliographies >General index. (For this item please quote stock ID 20150) ISBN: 9780521058001

After two volumes mainly introductory, Dr Needham now embarks upon his systematic study of the development of the natural sciences in China. The Sciences of the Earth follow: geography and cartography, geology, seismology and mineralogy. Dr Needham distinguishes parallel traditions of scientific cartography and religious cosmography in East and West, discussing orbocentric wheel-maps, the origins of the rectangular grid system, sailing charts and relief maps, Chinese survey methods, and the impact of Renaissance cartography on the East. Finally - and here Dr Needham?s work has no Western predecessors - there are full accounts of the Chinese contribution to geology and mineralogy. Contents: List of illustrations >List of tables >List of abbreviations >Acknowledgements >Author?s note >19. Mathematics >20. Astronomy >21. Meteorology >22. The Sciences of the Earth >23. Geography & cartography >24. Geology (& related sciences) >25. Seismology >26. Mineralogy >Addenda >Bibliographies >General index. (For this item please quote stock ID 20151) ISBN: 9780521058018

Dr Needham?s fourth volume traces the development of physics and physical technology in ancient and medieval China. It is conveniently divided into three separate parts, the present volume, Volume 4, Part 1, dealing with physics as such, Volume 4, Part 2 with mechanical engineering and Volume 4, Part 3 with civil engineering and nautics. Contents: >List of illustrations >List of tables >List of abbreviations >Acknowledgements >Author?s note >26. Physics >Bibliographies >General index. (For this item please quote stock ID 20152) ISBN: 9780521058025

As Dr Needham?s immense undertaking gathers momentum it has been found necessary to subdivide volumes into parts, each to be bound and published separately. The first part of Volume 4 deals with the physical sciences; the second with the diverse applications of physics in the many branches of mechanical engineering; and the third deals with civil and hydraulic engineering and nautical technology. With this part of Volume 4 we come to the application by the Chinese of physical principles in the control of forces and in the use of power; we cross the frontier separating tools from the machine. We have already noticed that the ancient Chinese concept of chhi (somewhat similar to the pneuma of the Greeks) asserted itself prominently in acoustics; but we discover here that the Chinese tendency to think pneumatically was also responsible for a whole range of brilliant technological achievements, for example, the double-acting piston-bellows, the rotary winnowing-fan, and the water-powered metallurgical blowing-machine (ancestor of the steam-engine); as well as for some extraordinary insights and predictions in aeronautics. Contents: >List of illustrations >List of tables >List of abbreviations >Acknowledgements >Author?s note >27. Mechanical engineering >Bibliographies >General index. (For this item please quote stock ID 20153) ISBN: 9780521058032

As Dr Needham?s immense undertaking gathers momentum it has been found necessary to subdivide volumes into parts, each bound and published separately. The first two parts of Volume 4 deal respectively with the physical sciences and with the diverse applications of physics in the many branches of mechanical engineering. The third deals with civil and hydraulic engineering and with nautical technology. Contents: >List of illustrations >List of tables >List of abbreviations >Acknowledgements >Author?s note >28. Civil engineering >29. Nautical technology >Bibliographies >General index. (For this item please quote stock ID 20154) ISBN: 9780521070607

Part one of the fifth volume of Joseph Needham?s great enterprise is written by one of the project?s collaborators. Professor Tsien Tsuen-Hsuin, working in regular consultation with Dr Needham, has written the most comprehensive account of every aspect of paper and printing in China to be published in the West. From a close study of the vast mass of source material, Professor Tsien brings order and illumination to an area of technology which has been of profound importance in the spread of civilisation. The main body of the book is a detailed study of the invention, technology and aesthetic development of printing in China. From the growth and ultimate refinements of early woodcut printing to the spread of printing from movable type and the development of book-binding, Professor Tsien carries the story forward to the beginning of the 19th century when ?more printed pages existed in Chinese than in all other languages put together?. (For this item please quote stock ID 20155) ISBN: 9780521086905

The fifth volume of Dr Needham?s immense undertaking, like the fourth, is subdivided into parts for ease of assimilation and presentation, each part bound and published separately. The volume as a whole covers the subjects of alchemy, early chemistry, and chemical technology (which includes military invention, especially gunpowder and rockets; paper and printing; textiles; mining and metallurgy; the salt industry; and ceramics). Contents: >List of illustrations >List of tables >List of abbreviations >Acknowledgements >Author?s note >33. Alchemy & chemistry (continued) >Bibliographies >General index. (For this item please quote stock ID 20156) ISBN: 9780521085717

(For this item please quote stock ID 20157) ISBN: 9780521210287

The fifth volume of Dr Needham?s immense undertaking, like the fourth, is subdivided into parts for ease of assimilation and presentation, each part bound and published separately. The volume as a whole covers the subjects of alchemy, early chemistry, and chemical technology (which includes military invention, especially gunpowder and rockets; paper and printing; textiles; mining and metallurgy; the salt industry; and ceramics). Contents: >List of illustrations >List of tables >List of abbreviations >Acknowledgements >Author?s note >33. Alchemy & chemistry (continued) >Bibliographies >General index. (For this item please quote stock ID 20158) ISBN: 9780521085731

The fifth volume of Dr Needham?s immense undertaking, like the fourth, is subdivided into parts for ease of assimilation and presentation, each part bound and published separately. The volume as a whole covers the subjects of alchemy, early chemistry, and chemical technology (which includes military invention, especially gunpowder and rockets; paper and printing; textiles; mining and metallurgy; the salt industry; and ceramics). Contents: >List of illustrations >List of tables >List of abbreviations >Author?s note >33. Alchemy & chemistry (continued) >Bibliographies >General Index. (For this item please quote stock ID 20159) ISBN: 9780521085748

Science & Civilisation in China Volume V Part 6 is the first of the three parts dealing with the arts of war in ancient and medieval China. The present volume opens with an introduction on Chinese attitudes to warfare in general. Four major sections follow: on the making and use of simple bows; on the crossbow, the standard weapon of the Han armies, and its introduction to the Western world; on the pre-gunpowder forms of artillery, including the invention of the trebuchet; and on the art of siege warfare in which the Mohists were particularly interested. There is a good deal of material on siege-warfare available, and this final section is a substantial one, covering all aspects in detail. Contents Part I. Military Technology: (a) Introduction (b) Chinese Literature on the Art of War (Krysztof Gawlikowski) >1. The military theoreticians >2. The military encyclopaedists >3. Basic concepts of the classical Chinese theory of war; general principles of action >4. Combat & competition >Other components of the classical Chinese theory of war >6. The main controversies within Chinese military thought (c) Distinctive Features of Chinese Military Thought: >1. Reasons for its perennial vitality >2. A syncretistic tradition; the non-military approach to war & the duties of soldiers >3. The great popularity of military thought among the people >4. Military thought in civil life >5. The place of the military element (wu) in the Chinese world order (d) Projectile Weapons: I. Archery (with Edward McEwen): >1. The bow >2. The crossbow >3. The social role of the bow & crossbow Part II. Ballistic Machinery: (with Wang Ling) >4. Spring, sinew, sling & swape; definitions & distribution >5. Forms of the arcuballista >6. Trebuchets, manned & counterweighted >7. Distribution & diffusion (e) Early Poliorcetics: the Mohists to the Sung (Robin D. S. Yates) >1. Early cities >2. The twelve types of attack >Bibliographies. (For this item please quote stock ID 20160) ISBN: 9780521327275

(For this item please quote stock ID 20161) ISBN: 9780521303583

This study, the first of two parts which will give a comprehensive account of Chinese textiles and textile technology, deals with the evolution of bast fibre spinning and silk-reeling in the history of China. These operations are the basic techniques in the production of yarn and thread, pre-requisite to weaving, and any study of Chinese textile technology must start with the raw material obtained from fibre plants such as hemp, ramie, jute, cotton, etc, and silk reeled off from cocoons of the domestic silkworm. Here for the first time in a publication outside China, the raw material, and the processing techniques applied to it, are documented in their context of historical evolution, geographical distribution and economic significance in an agrarian society. The time-span covered runs from the neolithic to the 19th century. Archaeological and pictoral evidence, the bulk of it hitherto unpublished in the West, is brought together with Chinese textual sources (which are extensively translated and interpreted) to illustrate Chinese achievements in this field. Professor Kuhn?s study reveals the way in which Chinese textile-technological inventiveness has influenced textile production in other regions of the world and in medieval Europe. It explains how textile technology reached its high point between the tenth and thirteenth centuries and attempts to indicate the reasons for its subsequent relative decline. The development of the textile industry in Europe was a key factor in the rise of capitalism. In the case of China after Sung times, textile technology and the organisation of textile labour may help indicate why such a development did not take place in China. Contents: >List of illustrations >List of tables >List of abbreviations >Foreword (Joseph Needham) >Author?s note >31. Textile technology >Bibliographies >General index. (For this item please quote stock ID 20162) ISBN: 9780521320214

The fifth volume of Dr Needham?s immense undertaking covers the subjects of chemistry and chemical technology. This, the thirteenth part of the volume, is the first history of Chinese mining to appear in a western language. Covering from the Neolithic period to the present day it deals with the full range of Chinese mining from copper to mercury, arsenic to coal and a large number of other minerals and materials. The author draws extensively not only on written sources but also on archaeological remains, and observation of traditional techniques still in use. The interrelationship between Chinese mining and the social, economic and political conditions in which it took place is examined, and leads the author to conclude that these extraneous factors were probably more important in determining how mining was carried out than technological progress. Contents: >List of illustrations >List of maps >List of tables >List of abbreviations >Author?s note >1. Introduction >2. An overview of mining in China >3. Sources >4. Deposits >5. The products of Chinese mining >6. Prospecting & exploration >Placer mining & surface mining >8. Underground mining >9. Ore dressing >10. The copper precipitation process >11. Labour, capital & mining technology >12. The state & mining technology >13. Conclusions >14. Bibliographies >15. General index >15. Table of Chinese dynasties >16. Romanisation convertion tables. (For this item please quote stock ID 20163) ISBN: 9780521580007

(For this item please quote stock ID 20164) ISBN: 9780521087315

This second part of the sixth volume of Joseph Needham's great enterprise is the first to be written by a collaborator. Francesca Bray, working closely with Dr Needham, has produced the most comprehensive study of Chinese agriculture to be published in the West. From a huge mass of source material, often confusing and obscure, and from first-hand study in China, she brings order and illumination to a crucial area of Chinese technological development. Bray sees agriculture as a system of technology holding a balance between nature and society: it represents an interplay between what is allowed by the natural environment and what is hindered by the state of society. She thus begins her book with an account of the ecological background to China's agricultural history and with a thorough survey of the source material. The main body of the book is an account, organised broadly along the lines of the great medieval Chinese treatises, of the technological history of agriculture, with major sections devoted to field systems, implements and techniques (sowing, harvesting, storing) and crop systems (what has grown and where and how crops rotated). The crops studies in detail are those without which no Chinese could survive: cereals, legumes, oil crops, tubers, fibre crops, vegetables and fruit - the crops, in other words, of self sufficiency in times of hardship and of commercial enterprise in times of prosperity. The concluding section contrasts Europe's Agricultural Revolution with agrarian change in North China in the Han and with the 'Green Revolution' in South China in the Sung. Important distinctions between dry-grain and wet-rice agriculture are noted with the consequent variations in the development of Chinese society. In the theoretical analysis which concludes this section we find a vital contribution to the elucidation of the main question posed by Dr Needham's work: why did the Scientific Revolution which transformed the world take place in Europe and not in China? Contents: >List of illustrations >List of tables >List of abbreviations >Author's note Part 41. Agriculture a. Introduction: >1. General characteristics of Chinese agriculture >2. Agricultural regions >3. Origins of Chinese agriculture b. Sources: >1. The yüeh ling or agricultural calendars >2. Agricultural treatises >3. State-commissioned compilations >4. Monographs >5. Supplementary sources >6. The content of the Chinese sources, & the implications for historical interpretation >7. A comparison with the European tradition c. Field systems: >1. Land clearance & reclamation >2. Shifting cultivation >3. Permanent fields d. Agricultural implements & techniques: >1. Tillage implements >2. Sowing >3. Fertilisation >4. Weeding & cultivation >5. Harvesting, threshing & winnowing >Grain storage e. Crop systems: >1. Crop rotation >2. Millets, sorghum & maize >3. Wheat & barley >4. Rice >5. Legumes >6. Oil crops >7. Tuber crops >8. Fibre crops >9. Vegetables & fruits f. Conclusions: Agricultural changes & society - stagnation or revolution?: >1. Did China contribute to Europe's Agricultural Revolution? >2. Agricultural revolution in China? >3. Development or change? >Bibliographies >General index. (For this item please quote stock ID 20165) ISBN: 9780521250764

Volume 6, Part 3 of Science & Civilisation in China contains two separate works. The first, by Christian Daniels, is a comprehensive history of Chinese sugar cane technology from ancient times to the early twentieth century. Dr Daniels includes an account of the contribution of Chinese techniques and machinery to the development of world sugar technology in the pre-modern period, devoting special attention to the transfer of this technology to the countries of South-East and East Asia in the period after the sixteenth century. The second, by Nicholas K. Menzies, is a history of forestry in China. Dr Menzies identifies a tradition of forest management that can be traced to the earliest Chinese written records, and describes methods of silviculture and the major timber species used in Chinese forestry. A final section compares China?s history of deforestation with the cases of Europe and Japan. Contents: >Foreword Joseph Needham Section 42a: Agro-Industries: Sugar Cane Technology >(a) Introduction: general characteristics of agro-industries in China >(b) Sugar cane & sugar: consumption & production in China >(c) Sugar cane clones, species & origins >(d) Sugar cane agriculture >(e) Cane sugar manufacture >(f) Transfer of Chinese sugar-making technology to East & South-East Asia >(g) Epilogue & overview >Bibliographies Section 42b: Forestry: >(a) Introduction >(b) Taxonomy & identification of major forestry species >(c) Silviculture & forest management >(d) Harvesting & transport >(e) Premonitions of ecology >(f) Forestry in Chinese society >Bibliography >General index. (For this item please quote stock ID 20166) ISBN: 9780521419994

Today Chinese cuisine is enjoyed in many parts of the world, yet little is known in the West about the technologies involved in making its characteristic ingredients. H. T. Huang?s book is the first history of Chinese food technology in a western language. It describes the conversion of agricultural commodities into food and drink, and explores the origins, development and scientific basis of traditional Chinese technology as applied to the processing of four food categories: the fermentation of alcoholic drinks from grains; the conversion of soybeans into soyfoods and condiments; the preservation of foods and the production of noodles, vegetable oils, malt sugar, starch, etc; and, lastly, the processing and utilisation of tea. Where possible the Chinese experience is compared with equivalent systems in the West and elsewhere. The book ends with reflections on how nature, technology and human intervention have shaped the discovery and innovation of processed foods in traditional China. Contents: >1. Introduction >2. Literature & sources >3. Fermentation & evolution of alcoholic drinks >4. Soybean processing & fermentation >5. Food processing & preservation >6. Tea processing & utilisation >7. Food & nutritional deficiency diseases >8. Reflections & epilogue. (For this item please quote stock ID 20167) ISBN: 9780521652704

Science & Civilisation in China Volume 7, Part 1 is the first book in the final volume of this unique resource. The Chinese culture is the only culture in the world which has developed systematic logical definitions and reflections on its own and on the basis of a non-Indo-European language. Christoph Harbsmeier discusses the basic features of the classical Chinese language which made it a suitable medium for science in ancient China, and he discusses in detail a wide range of abstract concepts which are crucial for the development of scientific discourse. There is special emphasis on the conceptual history of logical terminology in ancient China, and on traditional Chinese views on their own language. Finally the book provides an overview of the development of logical reflection in ancient China, first in terms of the forms of arguments that were deployed in ancient Chinese texts, and then in terms of ancient Chinese theoretical concerns with logical matters. Contents: >Foreword Joseph Needham >Preface >Section 49: Language & Logic in Traditional China A: Method: >1. Methodological remarks >2. The history of the study of classical Chinese language & logic in the West B: Typology: >1. The place of Chinese among East Asian languages >2. Spoken Chinese & the semiotics of Chinese characters >3. Traditional Chinese comments on language >4. The art of definition >5. Dictionaries in traditional China >6. The art of grammar in traditional China >7. The art of literacy in traditional China C: Logic: 1. Negation & the law of double negation in classical Chinese >2. Logical sentence connectives >3. Logical quantifiers >4. Lexical & grammatical categories >5. Logical & grammatical explicitness >6. Logical & grammatical complexity in classical Chinese D: Sentences: 1. Punctuation & the concept of a sentence >2. The concept of meaning >3. The concept of truth >4. The concept of necessity >5. The concept of contradiction >6. The concept of a class >7. Abstraction & the concept of a property >8. The concept of subsumption >9. The concepts of knowledge & belief E: Rationality: >1. Argumentation & rationality in early China >2. Some forms of argument in ancient China F: Hui Shih: >1. Teng Hsi & Hui Shih >2. Kungsun Lung & the White Horse dialogue >Appendix to 2: The mass noun hypothesis & the part-whole analysis of the White Horse dialogue >3. Hsun Tzu?s logic >4. Later Mohist logic >5. Chinese reactions to ancient Chinese disputation & logic >6. Logical thought in the 3rd century G: Buddhist Logic: >1. History of Buddhist logic >2. The system of Buddhist logic >3. The argument for consciousness only >4. The translation of logic from Sanskrit to Chinese >5. Contrasts between Yin Ming & Aristotelian logic Concluding Reflections >Bibliography >Index. (For this item please quote stock ID 20169) ISBN: 9780521571432

With over 900,000 treasures, the Palace Museum provides a substantial exhibition of all disciplines of traditional Chinese crafts. The 100 treasures chosen for this book portray the work of China's finest painters, calligraphers and craftsmen, and some of the objects shown are so rare that few comparable examples exist outside China. (For this item please quote stock ID 20223) ISBN: 9780670807956

This book addresses the historical relationship that has arisen between the concept of capitalism and the idea of China. Formulated by European intellectuals in order to identify the social formation in which they found themselves, capitalism was portrayed as unique to Europe and as an organic outgrowth of Western civilization. In this way, China was rejected as a model of civilisation, and seen merely as despotic, feudal or stagnant. This Eurocentric judgement has hung over all subsequent thinking about China, even influencing Chinese perceptions of their own history. The aim of this collaborative project is to examine how the experience of capitalism as a European social formation and as a world-system has shaped knowledge of China. In addition the volume aims to establish new foundations on which a theory of Chinese society might be built, in order to perceive and understand Chinese development in less Eurocentric terms. Contents: >Introduction (Gregory Blue & Timothy Brook) >1.The West, Capitalism & the modern world-system (Immanuel Wallerstein) >2.China & Western social thought (Gregory Blue) >3.Capitalism & the writing of modern history in China (Timothy Brook) >4.Toward a critical history of non-Western technology (Francesca Bray) >5.The political economy of Agrarian Empire & its modern legacy (R. Bin Wong) >Bibliography. (For this item please quote stock ID 20371) ISBN: 9780521525916

When published in 1982, this translation of Professor Jacques Gernet?s masterly survey of the history and culture of China was immediately welcomed by critics and readers. This revised and updated edition makes it more useful for students and for the general reader concerned with the broad sweep of China?s past. 'Gernet has accomplished with skill and vision one of scholarship?s most daunting tasks, the writing of a one-volume history of China' - The Times Higher Education Supplement. '. . . the English version will serve readers in an English-speaking world with a text-book of unchallenged value. The translation is smooth and stylish? - Modern Asian Studies. (For this item please quote stock ID 20384) ISBN: 9780521497817

This emerging superpower has captured the attention of the world; yet much of the culture, traditions, and daily life of China remains a mystery to Western readers. Completely up-to-date and comprehensive, Encyclopedia of China reveals the beauty, tragedies, and triumphs of this more than 3,000-year-old civilisation. From key geographical features to the ever-controversial U.S.-China trade relationship, more than 1,000 extensively cross-referenced, A-to-Z entries explore: >Geography, population, & lifestyle >Religion & popular culture >Arts & crafts >Literature >Performing & martial arts >History >Current politics & economics >Foreign relations and trade. Containing background information as well as numerous examples, each entry fully details a specific topic. Coverage is further enhanced by black-and-white photographs depicting architecture, art, temples, everyday life, modern cities, political figures, and much more. An indispensable reference for every library, Encyclopedia of China provides students and general readers with the keys to understanding this vast, complex country. '... a handy, current, and attractive reference source for general and college readers' - Choice. '... a nice blend of the scholarly, the cultural, and the commonplace ... a useful addition to many collections, especially in public and school libraries' - Booklist. (For this item please quote stock ID 21075) ISBN: 9780816043743

China, rich in history, is one of the birthplaces of mankind, and one of the important cradles of world civilisation. This title consists of 11 chapters that systematically introduces the history and civilisation of China from pre-history to the new century. Contents: >The Sun Rises in the East: The Pre-historical Age >Bronze Age: The Xia, the Shang & the Zhou >Chasing the Deer on the Central Plains - Seeking Control of the Empire: Spring & Autumn, & Warring States Periods >Great Unification of the Whole Country: Qin & Han Dynasties >Progressing in Turbulence: The Wei, the Jin, the Southern & Northern Dynasties >A Flourishing Age: The Sui, the Tang, the Five Dynasties >Competition & Unification: The Song, the Liao, the Xia, the Jin, & the Yuan >Centralization of State Power & Transformation of Social Pattern: The Ming Dynasty >The Brilliant Setting Sun: The Qing Dynasty >Tradition Awaited Renewal: Republic of China >Great Renewal of the Chinese Nation: The People?s Republic of China (For this item please quote stock ID 21079) ISBN: 9787507313604

This scholarly and fascinating account of one of the oldest civilisations in the world was prepared by a great western specialist on China. Professor Goodrich gathered his material from a variety of original sources - including monographs in many languages, from medieval chronicles by European and Arab travelers, and from little-known books by Chinese specialists. Spanning the country's entire history, the survey begins with the prehistoric period, then discusses the major currents of Chinese history, philosophy, culture and politics - from the reigns of such dynastic rulers as the Shang, Chou, Ch'in and Han, to the era of Mongol conquests and the Tang, Sun, Yüan, Ming and Manchu dynasties, and culminating with the birth of the Chinese Republic in 1912. Ideal for studying Chinese culture in higher secondary school courses and in the first years of university, this compact book includes excellent maps, a profusion of illustrations depicting contemporary artifacts, a chronological table, and a supplementary list of readings. Unabridged republication of the edition published by Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., New York, 1943. (For this item please quote stock ID 21107) ISBN: 9780486424880

The 100 museums featured in this television documentary series have been carefully selected from the more than 1,800 museums in China. This large-scale pioneering cultural project is the first of its kind to reveal the splendid assets and aspects of the culture of China's ancient civilisation. From the dinosaur era to the year 1840, The Museums of China covers many aspects of social life, leading audiences through the museum doors and into the lives of Chinese ancestors. (For this item please quote stock ID 21448) ISBN: 9787799600949

This major new museum was opened in September 1999, displaying for the first time to the public a significant proportion of the Chinese Imperial Collection at Nanjing. Featuring bronze, gold, jade, pottery, porcelain, lacquer, scholars' objects, painting and embroidery, this book reflects the amazing glories of this extraordinary collection. An active program of archaeological excavation has added to the wealth of the collection's earliest artifacts, such as the 38 gold articles discovered in 1982 in a cellar at the Nanyaozhuang village, Jiangsu Province - a veritable hoard from the Warring States period. One hundred and seven of the finest pieces in the collection have been selected by Professor Xu Huping, with a brief description and historical assessment of each item. The selection provides an introduction to the greatest art of China, as well as an informative and fascinating commentary on one of China's greatest national collections. Professor Xu Huping, the Director of the Nanjing Museum, has worked for more than a quarter of a century with the Nanjing Collection. Sorting it and curating it after the tribulations of the war years, his work culminated in the creation of the magnificent new museum to house the collection. (For this item please quote stock ID 22245) ISBN: 9789628621514

How did Asian farmers work the same fields for 40,000 years without destroying the land's fertility and without applying artificial fertiliser? At the turn of the 20th century, a former official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture travelled to Asia to learn the answer. This landmark book chronicles his travel and observations on waste-free methods of cultivation that conserve natural resources. Unabridged republication of the edition published by Mrs F. H. King, Madison, Wisconsin, 1911. '... one of the richest sources of information about peasant agriculture ... one of the pioneer books on organic farming' - The Last Whole Earth Catalog. (For this item please quote stock ID 22624) ISBN: 9780486436098

Relations between Inner Asian nomads and Chinese are a continuous theme throughout Chinese history. By investigating the formation of nomadic cultures, by analyzing the evolution of patterns of interaction along China's northern frontiers, and by exploring how this interaction was recorded in early Chinese historiography, this book explores the origins of the cultural and political tensions between these two civilizations through the first millennium BC. The main purpose of the book is to analyze ethnic, cultural, and political frontiers between nomads and Chinese in the historical contexts that led to their formation, and to look at cultural perceptions of 'others' as a function of the same historical process. Based on both archaeological and textual sources, this book also introduces a new methodological approach to Chinese frontier history, which combines extensive factual data with a careful scrutiny of the motives, methods, and general conception of history that informed the Chinese historian Ssu-ma Ch'ien. (For this item please quote stock ID 23807) ISBN: 9780521543828

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of Joseph Needham?s Science & Civilisation in China series. For nearly fifty years, Needham and his collaborators have revealed the ideals, concepts and achievements of China?s scientific and technological traditions from the earliest times to about 1800 through this great enterprise. During his long working lifetime, Needham kept in draft various essays, some written with collaborators, in which he set out his broad views on the Chinese social and historical context. These essays, edited by one of his closest collaborators, Kenneth Robinson, are contained in the present volume. A reading of this material makes it possible to reconstruct the assumptions and problems that underpinned and drove the Needham project throughout the nearly one half century during which he was at the helm. The documents gathered here reveal the intellectual foundations of one of the greatest scholarly enterprises of the twentieth century. Contents: >1. Prefaces >2. Foreword (Joseph Needham) >3. Science & society in east & west (Joseph Needham) >4. The roles of Europe & China in the evolution of ecumenical science (Joseph Needham) >5. The nature of Chinese society: a technical interpretation (Huang Jen-yü & Joseph Needham) >6. History & human values: a Chinese perspective for science & technology (Joseph Needham) >7. Literary Chinese as a language for science (Kenneth Robinson & Joseph Needham) >8. General conclusions >9. Joseph Needham: a soliloquy (Kenneth Robinson) >Bibliographies. (For this item please quote stock ID 23809) ISBN: 9780521087322

How were Chinese pots made, glazed and fired? Why did China discover porcelain more than one thousand years before the West? What are the effects of China?s influence on world ceramics? These questions (and many more) are answered in this lavishly-illustrated history of Chinese ceramic technology. The scene is set through the use of historical texts, archaeological excavation, and the principles of ceramic science. Chapters follow on the formation of clays and their relation to the underlying geologies of China, on firing, on manufacturing methods and sequences, on glazes, pigments and gilding, and on the impact of Chinese ceramic technology around the world, from the seventh to the twenty-first centuries. This is a volume unique in its coverage, which brings together research materials in several languages for the first time. With additional contributions by Ts?ai Mei-fen (National Palace Museum, Taipei) and Zhang Fukang (Shanghai Institute of Ceramics). Contents: >Preface >1. Setting the scene >2. Clays >3. Kilns >4. Manufacturing methods & sequences >5. Glazes >6. Pigments, enamels & gilding >7. Transfer >List of illustrations >List of tables >Chronology. (For this item please quote stock ID 23933) ISBN: 9780521838337

A brief introductory text that emphasizes cultural history while also covering political and economic history. Chapters are brief and each major Chinese dynasty, Japanese Shogunate, or other discrete period is treated in a separate chapter. Encounters with the West (beginning in the 16th century) are extensively covered. (For this item please quote stock ID 24077) ISBN: 9780155068476

'A fascinating and ambitious interdisciplinary study of popular and print culture in 19th and 20th century China. The Cult of Happiness is a pioneering Western-language work. It is one of only a handful of books worldwide on this important topic' - Christopher Reed, author of Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876-1937. History and art come together in this definitive discussion of the Chinese woodblock print form of nianhua, literally 'New Year pictures.' By analysing the role of nianhua first in the home and later in commercial and political theatres, James Flath relates these artworks to the social, cultural, and political milieu of North China as it was between the late Qing dynasty and the early 1950s. Among the first studies in any field to treat folk art and folk print as historical text, The Cult of Happiness offers original insight into popular conceptions of domesticity, morality, gender, society, modernity, and the transformation of the genre as a propaganda tool under communism. An extraordinary account of the cultural life of rural North China over the period. James A. Flath teaches in the Department of History at the University of Western Ontario. (For this item please quote stock ID 24632) ISBN: 9780774810357

In a remarkable and broad-ranging narrative, Zheng Yangwen's book explores the history of opium consumption in China from 1483 to the late twentieth century. The story begins in the mid-Ming dynasty, when opium was sent as a gift by vassal states and used as an aphrodisiac in court. Over time, the Chinese people from different classes and regions began to use it for recreational purposes, so beginning a complex culture of opium consumption. The book traces this transformation over a period of five hundred years, asking who introduced opium to China, how it spread across all sections of society, embraced by rich and poor alike as a culture and an institution. The book, which is accompanied by a fascinating collection of illustrations, will appeal to students and scholars of history, anthropology, sociology, political science, economics, and all those with an interest in China. (For this item please quote stock ID 24959) ISBN: 9780521608565

The Chinese University of Hong Kong is the proud owner of a very special collection of rare and antiquarian Chinese books of Chinese, Japanese ad Korean origin. Some of these titles are original manuscripts and others are limited editions of block prints dating back centuries. This collection of rare books has now been painstakingly analysed, verified and authenticated by specialists from the Shanghai Library in China. In this bibliography, a total of 848 titles amounting to 14,018 volumes ? which are the most valuable and rare works in the collection ? are selected and annotated in Chinese. The books are classified by the traditional Chinese classification system: ?Jing?, ?Shi?, ?Zi?, ?Ji?, and ?Cong?. Listed under each title are its author, edition, number of volumes, physical format and original publication details. (For this item please quote stock ID 25752) ISBN: 9789629961893

The Summer Palace, the most famous classical imperial garden in the world, has become a tourist hot spot. This handbook relates the outstanding landscape, architecture and history of the Summer Palace, and contains maps, facts, and numerous colour photographs. (For this item please quote stock ID 25873) ISBN: 9787119038087

(For this item please quote stock ID 27379) ISBN: 9787810959056

The China framed by Kubota's camera lens is neither a collectivist utopia lurching toward a high-tech future nor a consumer society adopting capitalist ways, trends overplayed recently in the Western press. Instead we glimpse an immensely varied, post-feudal China struggling to modernize in the face of persistently low living standards. One hundred eighty-five candid color photographs show ferryboats and junks; meat shops where slaughtered cats and dogs are sold as food; careworn peasants, student artists, nude bathers, duck farmers; ancestor worshippers, devout Muslims and Tibetan lamaists. Kubota, born in China but launched on his photographic career in the U.S., traveled through the People's Republic from 1979 to 1984. He roamed from northwestern deserts to Manchurian forests, from ice-fishing in subzero temperatures to tribal "water festivals." Yet, somehow, the Chinese people and the country's political climate remain elusive in all of this. (For this item please quote stock ID 27844) ISBN: 9780893818623

(For this item please quote stock ID 28107) ISBN: 9787883046448

This book is the latest and best illustrated album about the First Emperor of China, the man who built the Great Wall and had the famous powerful army of terracotta warriors to protect him after his death. It introduces the age of turmoil in which the First Emperor was born and lived, the establishment of the first centralized unified feudal empire in China, wonders of the east, the death knell of the tyrannical rule, a powerful Qin army buried in formation 2,200 years ago, a record of historical events during the lifetime of the first emperor. (For this item please quote stock ID 29476) ISBN: 9787800073809

Due to various reasons, some foreign readers know little about Tibet's historical evolution and its past politics, economy, society, culture and life. In order to help readers, especially foreign readers, get a picture of Tibet, this bilingual book uses texts, photographs, tables and diagrams to unveil a true Tibet that has been advancing in step with world civilization. (For this item please quote stock ID 29477) ISBN: 9787108029553

Originally designed as a mission to collect tribute from neighboring countries, China?s massive naval fleet in the early 15th century stunned the world with its daring exploration, immense wealth, and military might. The unprecedented ambition of one of the world?s oldest civilizations has now come full circle and regained global attention. On the 600th anniversary of its virgin voyage, nothing is more celebratory than recalling the legendary life of Zheng He, the commander of that spectacular maritime parade. The authors resurrect the character with their faithful portrayal of Zheng He as a loyal and devoted public servant together with having an innate ability to lead and influence. The text overflows with emotions that are complemented by oversized illustrations lavishly depicting the magnitude of this historical enterprise. One can easily become as engrossed in the paintings as one does in the fast-moving events of the story. Through an open-ended treatment of a far-reaching Chinese connection in the world, non-Chinese readers will be able to visualize the authentic Chinese view of the rise and fall of the Ming fleet. Consequently, new interests and discoveries may catapult from this epic that all ages will enjoy. (For this item please quote stock ID 29711) ISBN: 9781572270909

Covers the major events and developments throughout the several thousands years of cultural relations between China and the outside world - from remote antiquity to 1949. The author uses ancient legends, archaeological data. vivid descriptions and Chinese and foreign literature - all carefully chosen and verified. The book consists of ten chapters divided into two parts; the six chapters in Part One cover the historical cultural exchange and amalgamation of China and the Western Regions; the four chapters in Part Two detail the introduction of modern sciences and the reform of traditional Chinese culture. The main focus of the book has three aspects: first, an introduction of the historic 'bridges' and passages of East-West cultural exchange; second, an explanation of the scope and scale of such exchanges; and third, an analysis of the inter-action of Chinese and foreign cultures and a look at the future of Chinese culture. The book also contains many coloured as well as black-and-white pictures, in addition to two maps showing ?East-West Communication in the Year 200? and ?The Westward Spread of China?s Five Great Inventions?. Index also included. (For this item please quote stock ID 12573) ISBN: 9787119004310

This book re-examines the nature of early Chinese work in natural science, on the basis of original records analysis and artifacts discovered in recent decades by archaeological explorations of China's past. It presents a concise account of early scientific ideas and thoughts of nature, and their effect on the development of natural science. It is suggested that the traditional characterization of early Chinese work in natural science requires substantial modification. The absence of early Chinese participation in the development of 'modern' science is not, as commonly assumed, a consequence of lacking early scientific tradition in ancient China. It is argued that the concept of 'inhibitive' factors is dubious without taking their dynamical relationships into account, and that socio-economical and political influence has to be considered when seeking answers to the major setbacks in science and technology in China. The book also shows that there is no basis for the claims saying that acoustics and astronomy in China have their roots in Babylon. Joseph Chen is a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. His research interest has been in atomic and molecular physics, and the history and philosophy of science. He is Director of the Wei-Kung Institute and Editor of the Wei-Kung book series on the History of Science and Technology in East Asia. (For this item please quote stock ID 16802) ISBN: 9789622093850

John Hobson challenges the ethnocentric bias of mainstream accounts of the Rise of the West. It is often assumed that since Ancient Greek times Europeans have pioneered their own development, and that the East has been a passive by-stander in the story of progressive world history. Hobson argues that there were two processes that enabled the Rise of the 'Oriental West'. First, each major developmental turning point in Europe was informed in large part by the assimilation of Eastern inventions (e.g. ideas, technologies and institutions) which diffused from the more advanced East across the Eastern-led global economy between 500-1800. Second, the construction of European identity after 1453 led to imperialism, through which Europeans appropriated many Eastern resources (land, labour and markets). Hobson's book thus propels the hitherto marginalised Eastern peoples to the forefront of the story of progress in world history. >Provides a fresh non-racist account of the Rise of the West >Rethinks the essential categories, concepts & assumptions of world history >This is the first book to explore the role of identity in world historical development Contents: >1. Countering the Eurocentric myth of the West: discovering the Oriental West Part I: The East as an Early Developer: >2. Islamic & African pioneers: building the global economy in the Afro-Asian Age of Discovery, 500?1500 >3. Chinese pioneers: the first industrial miracle & the myth of Chinese isolationism, 1000?1800 >4. The East remains dominant: India, Japan and Southeast Asia, 1400?1800 Part II: The West was Last: >5. Inventing Christendom & the Eastern origins of European feudalism >6. The myth of the Italian pioneer >7. The myth of the Vasco de Gama epoch, 1498?1800 Part III: The West as a Late-Developer: >8. The myth of 1492 & the impossibility of America: the Afro-Asian contribution to the catch-up of the West, 1492?1700 >9. The Chinese origins of British industrialisation >10. Constructing European racist identity & the invention of the world, 1700?1850 >11. War, racist imperialism & the Afro-Asian origins of British industrialisation Part IV: Conclusion: The Oriental West versus the Eurocentric Myth of the West >12. The twin myths of the Western liberal state & the civilisational divide between East & West, 1500?1900 >13. The rise of the Oriental West (For this item please quote stock ID 24898) ISBN: 9780521547246

This book is a social and political history of the struggle for literacy in rural China from 1949 until 1994. It aims to show how China's revolutionary leaders conceived and promoted literacy in the countryside and how villagers made use of the literacy education and schools they were offered. Rather than focusing narrowly on educational issues alone, Peterson examines the larger significance of P.R.C. literacy efforts by situating the literacy movement within the broad context of major themes and issues in the social and political history of post-1949 China. Following the recent trend toward regional and local history, this book focuses on the linguistically diverse, socially complex, and politically awkward southeastern coastal province of Guangdong. Peterson also conducted interviews with local officials and teachers in several Guangdong counties in 1988 and 1989. Glen Peterson is an assistant professor in the Department of History, University of British Columbia. (For this item please quote stock ID 21167) ISBN: 9780774806121

A remarkable book on Vermeer's magical paintings as an entry to a broader canvas of life in the seventeenth century. From the epicentre of Delft in the Netherlands Brook takes the paintings of Johannes Vermeer and uses details of them as a series of entry points to the widest circles of world trade and cultural exchange in the seventeenth century. An officer's beaver hat in 'Officer and the Laughing Girl' opens up the story of Champlain's dealing with the native peoples of Canada and the beaver trade. A china dish on a table in another painting uncovers the story of the Chinese porcelain trade. Moving outwards from Vermeer's studio Brook traces the web of trade that was spreading across the globe, from firearms to silver mines and Manila galleons. And his vision embraces many personal stories - of an African slave and a Chinese aesthete, of a Dutch gunsmith stranded in Korea and of Vermeer himself. About the author Timothy Brook is Shaw Professor of Chinese Studies at Oxford and the author of many books on Chinese history. (For this item please quote stock ID 30076) ISBN: 9781846681127

The People's Republic of China claims 22,000 kilometres of land borders and 18,000 kilometres of coast line. How did this vast country come into being? The state credo describes an ancient process of cultural expansion, where border peoples gratefully accepted Chinese high culture. But why has the "centre" so often been compelled to maintain control over its border regions? The essays in this volume look at this relationship over a long time span, questioning whether the process of expansion was a benevolent civilizing mission. (For this item please quote stock ID 30264) ISBN: 9780774813334

An Outline History of Chinese Philosophy has been jointly written and compiled by over 20 specialists and scholars from nine renowned universities in China, including Wuhan University and Sun Yat-sen University. It provides a concise introduction to the origin and development of Chinese philosophy from antiquity to 1949, the year the People's Republic of China was founded, expounding its status and features at different historical stages. It gives a historical and logical delineation of the development of Chinese philosophy by highlighting its origin and development during the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, the golden age of philosophical thought during the Warring States Period, and the strides made by the Chinese philosophical system from Qin-Han times to the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as new visions brought by social reforms since the mid-Ming Dynasty. This book presents readers with a detailed and accurate text, lucid discussions and simple explanations of complex ideas. It is not only a monograph with academic and textual value, but also a must-have for readers to better understand and study Chinese philosophy and culture. (For this item please quote stock ID 30373) ISBN: 9787119027197

An Outline History of China gives a brief introduction to the long historical course of development of China from ancient times up to the founding of the People?s Republic of China in 1949. The book first gives an outline of contemporary Chinese geography, population, ethnicity and history. It then describes ancient human activities, and the social and historical meanings of ancient mythologies and legends, and gives a concise account of the rise and fall of the Xia, Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han, Wei, Jin, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. There follow, in detail or in brief, as appropriate, introductions to the politics, economy, military affairs, culture, laws, inventions, cultural relics, etiquette and customs, relationships between classes and ethnic groups in China, and between China and foreign countries, plus an enlightening description of the country?s modern social reforms. There is an index at the back of the book for convenience of reference. (For this item please quote stock ID 30387) ISBN: 9787119052960

Written by a senior scholar and master mariner, Sailors and Traders is the first comprehensive account of the maritime peoples of the Pacific. It focuses on the sailors who led the exploration and settlement of the islands and New Zealand and their seagoing descendants, providing along the way new material and unique observations on traditional and commercial seagoing against the background of major periods in Pacific history. The book begins by detailing the traditions of sailors, a group whose way of life sets them apart. Like all others who live and work at sea, Pacific mariners face the challenges of an often harsh environment, endure separation from their families for months at a time, revere their vessels, and share a singular attitude to risk and death. The period of prehistoric seafaring is discussed using archaeological data, interpretations from interisland exchanges, experimental voyaging, and recent DNA analysis. Sections on the arrival of foreign exploring ships centuries later concentrate on relations between visiting sailors and maritime communities. The more intrusive influx of commercial trading and whaling ships brought new technology, weapons, and differences in the ethics of trade. The successes and failures of Polynesian chiefs who entered trading with European-type ships are recounted as neglected aspects of Pacific history. As foreign-owned commercial ships expanded in the region so did colonialism, which was accompanied by an increase in the number of sailors from metropolitan countries and a decrease in the employment of Pacific islanders on foreign ships. Eventually small-scale island entrepreneurs expanded interisland shipping, and in 1978 the regional Pacific Forum Line was created by newly independent states. This was welcomed as a symbolic return to indigenous Pacific ocean linkages. The book?s final sections detail the life of the modern Pacific seafarer. Most Pacific sailors in the global maritime labor market return home after many months at sea, bringing money, goods, a wider perspective of the world, and sometimes new diseases. Each of these impacts is analyzed, particularly in the case of Kiribati, a major supplier of labor to foreign ships. 9 illus., 2 maps Alastair Couper is visiting professor at Greenwich Maritime Institute, London. He has professional and research experience over many years in the Pacific, including sailing with island crews. (For this item please quote stock ID 31179) ISBN: 9780824832391

During the nineteenth century, the colonial Straits Settlements of Singapore, Penang, and Melaka were established as free ports of British trade in Southeast Asia and proved attractive to large numbers of regional migrants. Following the abolishment of slavery in 1833, the Straits government transported convicts from the East India Company?s Indian presidencies to the settlements as a source of inexpensive labour. The prison became the primary experimental site for the colonial plural society and convicts were graduated by race and the labour needed for urban construction. Hidden Hands and Divided Landscapes investigates how a political system aimed at managing ethnic communities in the larger material context of the colonial urban project was first imagined and tested through the physical segregation of the colonial prison. It relates the story of a city, Singapore, and a contemporary city-state whose plural society has its origins in these historical divisions.
A description of the evolution of the ideal plan for a plural city across the three settlements is followed by a detailed look at Singapore?s colonial prison. Chapters trace the prison?s development and its dissolution across the urban landscape through the penal labour system. The author demonstrates the way in which racial politics were inscribed spatially in the division of penal facilities and how the map of the city was reconfigured through convict labour. Later chapters describe penal resistance first through intimate stories of penal life and then through a discussion of organized resistance in festival riots. Eventually, the plural city ideal collapsed into the hegemonic urban form of the citadel, where a quite different military vision of the city became evident.
Hidden Hands and Divided Landscapes is a fascinating and thoroughly original study in urban history and the making of multiethnic society in Singapore. It will compel readers to rethink the ways in which colonial urban history, postcolonial urbanism, and governance have been theorized by scholars and represented by governments. (For this item please quote stock ID 31276) ISBN: 9780824833541

Warren Cohen reviews the role of the United States in East Asia over the past century, making a convincing case for American influence in Asia as generally positive. He illustrates specific ways in which American culture has affected Asians, from forms of government to entertainment, and offers valuable insights into the nature of cultural exchange. Americanisation was most successful when Asians freely adopted cultural elements, while efforts to impose values generally failed, notably in the Philippines. And in a fascinating and eye-opening assessment of the 'Asianisation' of America, Cohen observes that Asian influences in food, film, music, medicine, and religion are now woven deeply - and permanently - into the American fabric. Indeed, Asians are changing American identity itself: by mid-century, approximately one in ten Americans will boast Asian ancestry. In this lively look at the cultural bonds that continue to shape the relationship between East Asians and Americans, Cohen invites us to ponder the past and envision the future as the 'American Century' gives way to one with a decidedly more Asian focus. (For this item please quote stock ID 18616) ISBN: 9780674007659

In this comprehensive study of the rhetoric, narrative patterns, and intellectual content of the Zuozhuan and Guoyu, David Schaberg reads these two collections of historical anecdotes as traces of a historiographical practice that flourished around the fourth century B.C.E. among the followers of Confucius. He contends that the coherent view of early China found in these texts is an effect of their origins and the habits of reading they impose. Rather than being totally accurate accounts, they represent the efforts of a group of officials and ministers to argue for a moralising interpretation of the events of early Chinese history and for their own value as skilled interpreters of events and advisers to the rulers of the day. (For this item please quote stock ID 18619) ISBN: 9780674008618

This second volume of the ongoing annotated translation of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Shih chi The Grand Scribe's Records, widely acknowledged as the most important early Chinese history, contains the 'basic annals' of five early Han-dynasty emperors. The annals trace the first century of Han rule (206 B.C. to ca. 100 B.C.) in a year-by-year account that focuses on imperial activities. In The Grand Scribe's Records, Ssu-ma Ch'ien revitalised the style of the annals he had written for previous rulers. When this translation is completed, it will make available in English all 130 chapters of the Shih chi. Volumes 1 and 7 were published by Indiana University Press in 1994. Contents: >Acknowledgements >Introduction >On Using This Book >Weights & Measures >List of Abbreviations >The Exalted Emperor, Basic Annals 8 >Empress Dowager Lü, Basic Annals 9 >The Filial & Cultured [Emperor], Basic Annals 10 >The Filial & Luminous [Emperor], Basic Annals 11 >The Filial & Martial [Emperor], Basic Annals 12 >Frequently Mentioned Commentators >Biographical Sketches of Shih chi Commentators >Glossary >Shih chi Chi-chieh >Preface >Ssu-k'u ch'üan-shu Resumes on Shih chi & Shih chi Chi-chieh >Recent Studies of the Shi chi >Index >Maps (For this item please quote stock ID 19712) ISBN: 9780253340221

The loss of direction and the ensuing search for orientation have been an integral part of China?s modernisation process, the most serious attempt to find a direction following the Marxist approach that was carried to extremes under the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). This selection of papers are drawn from the The Empire Strikes Back: Restoration in China conference held at the University of Sydney July 1992. The essays of this book show the tenacity of old traditions and how by the 1990s there was a clear and vigorous resurgence of old practices and references to the past, and that these in fact were manifestations of a rejection of the Cultural Revolution. The essays include: Star Wars & the Confucian Ethic, Confucianism & Deng?s China, The Invention of the Modern Chinese Self, Continuity in the Relationship Between Law & Administration, Changes in the Discourse on Political Morality in the 1980s & 1990s, Secular Karma: The Communist Revolution Understood in Traditional Terms, Before Tradition: the Book of Changes, Yang Lian?s Yi & the Affirmation of the Self Through Poetry, Traditional Chinese Music in 1989: The Art Cup, Towards Self-Reliance?: A Selective View of Contemporary Chinese Art, Images of ?Feudal? Marriage in Recent Chinese Films, Irrational Belief Among the Chinese Elite, and Qigong, Daoism & Science: Some Contexts for the Qigong Boom. (For this item please quote stock ID 19881) ISBN: 9780867586589

Village China Under Socialism and Reform offers a comprehensive account of rural life after the communist revolution, detailing villager involvement in political campaigns since the 1950s, agricultural production under the collective system, family farming and non-agricultural economy in the reform, and everyday life in the family and community. Li's rich examination draws on original documents from local agricultural collectives, newly accessible government archives, and his own fieldwork in Qin village of Jiangsu province to highlight the continuities in rural transformation. Firmly disagreeing with those who claim that recent developments in rural China represent a radical break with pre-reform sociopolitical practices and patterns of production, Li instead draws a clear history connecting the current situation to ecological, social, and institutional changes that have persisted from the collective era. (For this item please quote stock ID 31284) ISBN: 9780804759748

This booklet lists names, dates and year periods of the Chinese rulership, beginning with legendary times through to 1949. 796 entries with Chinese characters and their respective Wade-Giles romanisation. (For this item please quote stock ID 7842) ISBN: 9780910704793

For centuries the Manchurian peoples inhabited a cultural and economic world that made them sometimes enemies, sometimes allies, of neighboring Chinese, Koreans, Mongols, and Russians. Between 1636 and 1700 this picture changed dramatically. The Manchus united and conquered the whole of China and Mongolia. A century later they added Tibet and Eastern Turkistan, creating one of the largest land empires in history. How they achieved this, and what the consequences were to themselves and to their subjects, are the main themes of this book. The final chapters reveal the roles the West and Japan played in undermining Qing authority in the nineteenth century and the sporadic attempts to restore it in the twentieth. Lastly, the book considers the fate of the contemporary Manchu minority in China and examines new signs of its resurgent identity. Pamela Kyle Crossley's most recent study, A Translucent Mirror: History & Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology (1999) was awarded the Levenson Prize by the Association for Asian Studies. She is a past fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and presently is Professor of History at Dartmouth College (New Hampshire, USA). (For this item please quote stock ID 17460) ISBN: 9780631235910

The Tang dynasty was not only the 'Golden Age? of Chinese culture, but also a time when the rulers especially valued the beauty of gold and silver. The rulers commissioned the creation of a plethora of objets d?art that bear testament to the skills of Tang designers and artisans. The durability of these precious metals means that they have lasted through the ages. Based on an exhibition mounted in Shaanxi in 1995, this collection includes 55 beautiful colour photographs of exquisite gold and silver objects from the Tang dynasty, with concise historical background - an essential book for everyone interested in China and Chinese culture. (For this item please quote stock ID 5973) ISBN: 9789622174597

This book explores the history of the English language in China from the arrival of the first English-speaking traders in the early 17th century to the present. Kingsley Bolton uses early word-lists, satirical cartoons and data from journals and memoirs, as well as more conventional sources, to uncover the forgotten history of English in China and to show how contemporary Hong Kong English has its historical roots in Chinese pidgin English. The book also considers the varying status of English in mainland China over time, and recent developments since 1997. Features: >Provides the first thorough treatment of the pedigree of Hong Kong English >Describes the interface of the worlds two largest language complexes (English & Chinese) since first contact, using detailed original research >Offers important new insights for the study of World Englishes, giving illustrations that are interestingly distinct from the better-known regional Englishes, e.g. South Asia or the Caribbean Contents: >1. New Englishes & World Englishes: pluricentric approaches to English worldwide >2. The sociolinguistics of English in late colonial Hong Kong (1980?1997) >3. The archaeology of 'Chinese Englishes' 1637?1949 >4. The emergence of Hong Kong English as a 'new English' >5. Hong Kong, China, & Chinese Englishes >Appendix 1: Chinese dialects in China >Appendix 2: Chinese dialects in Guangdong (Canton) Province >Appendix 3: The Common Foreign Language of the Red-haired People (1835) >Appendix 4: The vocabulary of Hong Kong English >References >Index. (For this item please quote stock ID 21978) ISBN: 9780521811637

Eurasian Crossroads is the first comprehensive history of Xinjiang, the vast central Eurasian region bordering India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Mongolia. Drawing on primary sources in several Asian and European languages, James Millward presents a thorough study of Xinjiang?s history and people from antiquity to the present and takes a balanced look at the position of Turkic Muslims within the PRC today.

(For this item please quote stock ID 31522) ISBN: 9780231139250

This volume presents an introduction to almost 2000 years of Chinese history. Telling this story through images of people, landscapes, artworks, artefacts and more. Alexandra Wetzel brings together in one convenient place the most significant products of Chinese culture, showing in particular the evolution of the arts, everyday lifestyles, religious beliefs and the coexistence of tradition and innovation.

(For this item please quote stock ID 31527) ISBN: 9780520259072

The first two editions of Chen Village presented an enthralling account of a Chinese village in the throes of Maoist revolution followed by dramatic changes in village life and local politics during the Deng Xiaoping period. Now, more than a decade and a half later, the authors have returned to Chen Village, and in three new chapters they explore astonishing developments. The once-backwater village is today a center of China's export industry, where more than 50,000 workers labor in modern factories, ruled by the village government. This new edition of Chen Village illuminates, in microcosm, the recent history of rural China up to the present time.

(For this item please quote stock ID 31678) ISBN: 9780520259317

The first complete history of Central Eurasia from ancient times to the present day, Empires of the Silk Road represents a fundamental rethinking of the origins, history, and significance of this major world region. Beckwith describes the rise and fall of the great Central Eurasian empires, including those of the Scythians, Attila the Hun, the Turks and Tibetans, and Genghis Khan and the Mongols. In addition, he explains why the heartland of Central Eurasia led the world economically, scientifically, and artistically for many centuries despite invasions by Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Chinese, and others. In retelling the story of the Old World from the perspective of Central Eurasia, the author provides a new understanding of the internal and external dynamics of the Central Eurasian states and shows how their people repeatedly revolutionized Eurasian civilization.Beckwith recounts the Indo-Europeans? migration out of Central Eurasia, their mixture with local peoples, and the resulting development of the Graeco-Roman, Persian, Indian, and Chinese civilizations; he details the basis for the thriving economy of premodern Central Eurasia, its disintegration upon the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century partition of the region by the Chinese and Russians, and the damaging of Central Eurasian culture by Modernism; and he discusses the significance for world history of the partial reemergence of Central Eurasian nations after the collapse of the Soviet Union.Empires of the Silk Road places Central Eurasia within a world historical framework and demonstrates why the region is central to our understanding of the history of civilization.
(For this item please quote stock ID 32127) ISBN: 9780691135892

Combining new approaches with a groundbreaking historical synthesis, this accessible work is the most thorough and up-to-date general history of French Indochina available in English. Unique in its wide-ranging attention to economic, social, intellectual, and cultural dimensions, it is the first book to treat Indochina's entire history from its inception in Cochinchina in 1858 to its crumbling at Dien Bien Ph in 1954 and on to decolonization. Basing their account on original research as well as on the most recent scholarship, Pierre Brocheux and Daniel Hemery tell this story from a perspective that is neither Eurocentric nor nationalistic but that carefully considers the positions of both the colonizers and the colonized. With this approach, they are able to move beyond descriptive history into a rich exploration of the ambiguities and complexities of the French colonial period in Indochina. Rich in themes and ideas, their account also sheds new light on the national histories of the emerging nation-states of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, making this book essential reading for students, scholars, and general readers interested in the region, in the Vietnam War, or in French imperialism, among other topics.

About the Authors
Pierre Brocheux is Professor of Contemporary History at Universite Paris VII-Denis Diderot and the author of Ho Chi Minh: A Biography and The MeKong Delta: Ecology, Economy and Revolution, 1860-1960.

Daniel Hemery is Professor of Contemporary History at Universite Paris VII-Denis Diderot and the author of In the Servitude of Power: Energy and Civilization through the Ages, among other books.
(For this item please quote stock ID 31550) ISBN: 9780520245396

Stephen Haw sets out the history of the city of Beijing, charting the course of its development from its early roots before 2000 BC to its contemporary position as capital of the People's Republic of China. Stephen Haw, a well-established author on China, outlines the establishment of the earliest cities in the years before 1000 BC, its status as regional capital during most of the long Zhou dynasty, and its emergence as capital of the whole of China after the conquest of the Mongol invaders under Chenghiz Khan and his successors. He considers the city's assumption of its modern name ?Beijing' under the Ming dynasty, conquest by the Manchus and the turbulent years of civil war that followed the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, culminating in the communist revolution and Beijing's resumption of the role of capital of China in 1949. Overall, Stephen Haw gives an impressive account of the long and fascinating history of a city that is growing in prominence as an urban centre of global significance. (For this item please quote stock ID 29878) ISBN: 9780415399050

'A highly unusual collection of essays, one which is sure to generate lively discussion. Its most exciting element is the generous coverage of areas and topics that are usually completely ignored but which will take on increasing importance in the coming years' - Victor H. Mair, University of Pennsylvania. China Off Center takes as its fundamental assumption that contemporary China can only be understood as a complex, decentralised place, where the view from above (Beijing) and from tourist buses is a skewed one. Instead of generalising about China, it demonstrates that this diverse national terrain is better conceived as it is experienced by Chinese, as a set of many Chinas. To that end, this anthology of interpretive essays and ethnographic reports focuses on the everyday, the particular, the local, and the puzzling. Together with contextualising introductions, the readings provide students with a compelling look at some little-known but significant aspects of China from the past decade; for those already familiar with China, they furnish an assortment of uncommon viewpoints in a single, convenient volume. Foreword by Prasenjit Duara. Contributors: A. Doak Barnett, Susan D. Blum, Diane Dorfman, Mary S. Erbaugh, Edward Friedman, Vincent E. Gil, Dru Gladney, Erwin J. Haeberle, Lionel M. Jensen, Andrew F. Jones, Eric Ivan Karchmer, Liu Binyan, Dalin Liu, Man Lun Ng, S. Robert Ramsey, Dorothy J. Solinger, Ann Tyson, James Tyson, Sydney White, David Yen-ho Wu, Li Ping Zhou. Susan D. Blum is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame. Lionel M. Jensen is associate professor and chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Notre Dame. (For this item please quote stock ID 18065) ISBN: 9780824825775

[Indent] This volume brings together articles on modern Chinese history and historiography written by one of the leading academic experts on the subject. Paul Cohen provides a critique of older approraches to 19th-century history and offers powerful re-interpretations of such key events in the recent history of China as the Boxer Rebellion, Mao's ascension to power in 1949, and the process of political and economic reform in the post-Mao era. (For this item please quote stock ID 21653) ISBN: 9780415298230

(For this item please quote stock ID 13144) ISBN: 9780824819965

Talk About China in English: History covers twenty sections, pre-historic myths, Xia Dynasty, Shang Dynasty, the Western Zhou Dynasty, Chunqiu, Zhanguo, Qin Dynasty, Han Dynasty, Three Kingdoms, Jin Dynasty, the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Sui Dynasty, Five Dynasties and Ten States, Song Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty, Ming Dynasty, Qing Dynasty, China Republic and the People?s Republic of China. It talks about the important political and economic policies, the important events and people in each period, and their influences and contribution to the development of human beings and society. (For this item please quote stock ID 30903) ISBN: 9787542742056

(For this item please quote stock ID 11077) ISBN: 9780824812195

The Tang dynasty is often called China?s "golden age," a period of commercial, religious, and cultural connections from Korea and Japan to the Persian Gulf, and a time of unsurpassed literary creativity. Mark Lewis captures a dynamic era in which the empire reached its greatest geographical extent under Chinese rule, painting and ceramic arts flourished, women played a major role both as rulers and in the economy, and China produced its finest lyric poets in Wang Wei, Li Bo, and Du Fu.

The Chinese engaged in extensive trade on sea and land. Merchants from Inner Asia settled in the capital, while Chinese entrepreneurs set off for the wider world, the beginning of a global diaspora. The emergence of an economically and culturally dominant south that was controlled from a northern capital set a pattern for the rest of Chinese imperial history. Poems celebrated the glories of the capital, meditated on individual loneliness in its midst, and described heroic young men and beautiful women who filled city streets and bars.

Despite the romantic aura attached to the Tang, it was not a time of unending peace. In 756, General An Lushan led a revolt that shook the country to its core, weakening the government to such a degree that by the early tenth century, regional warlordism gripped many areas, heralding the decline of the Great Tang.

(For this item please quote stock ID 31528) ISBN: 9780674033061

(For this item please quote stock ID 18978) ISBN: 9787532530663

A Journey Into China?s Antiquity is a four-volume series published chronologically that relates the history of China through relics, artefacts and works of art. Each volume contains more than 500 photographs and has a substantial text, all selected, compiled and written by experts of the National Museum of Chinese History in Beijing. Volume 1 covers the period from China?s earliest pre-humans (Homo erectus) -Yuanmou Man, who lived 1.7 millions years ago - to the late Spring and Autumn Period (fifth century B.C.). (For this item please quote stock ID 16385) ISBN: 9787505404762

Volume 3 covers the period from the end of the sixth century to the late 13th Century, i.e. from the Sui-Tang dynasties to the Northern and Southern Song dynasties (For this item please quote stock ID 16390) ISBN: 9787505405073

Volume 4 is from the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties to 1911 when China?s feudal society came to an end. (For this item please quote stock ID 16391) ISBN: 9787505405141

Beijing: Glimpses of History takes the reader on a tour of the historical sites in and around Beijing. With 120 and more colour photographs, the book presents some of the intriguing examples of Beijing's cultural heritage, including palaces and gardens, altars and temples, the Great Wall and the imperial mausoleums. The captions provide information on the locations of the sites, the dates of construction, the architectural features and the historical background. A brief account of the evolution of Beijing precedes the photographs.The text is in both Chinese and English, and can be used as a tourist guide or for the study of Chinese art. (For this item please quote stock ID 396) ISBN: 9787119007359

A veritable handbook and guide for the student of Chinese history, combining data on the compiling of historical records, bibliographical information on 860 Chinese historical works and vital data on 460 Chinese authors, mostly unobtainable elsewhere in English. All Chinese names, terms and book titles are given in both romanisation and characters forming with the copious indexes, a glossary for historical research. It is the first thorough work on the subject in English. Dr. Han was born and reared in old Peking and is versed in both the traditional and modern learning of China and the West. Lecturer in History, 1941-46, and Associate Professor of History at U.C.L.A. (For this item please quote stock ID 7765) ISBN: 9780910704694

This book chronicles the glorious history of printing in China. Illustrations enable readers to visually and systematically understand the process of printing in ancient China, from its invention to its development. The album presents representative examples, provides an overview of the styles and characteristics of printing throughout various dynasties, and shows the level of block printing reached in different periods. Contributions from historical figures to the history of printing are also introduced. (For this item please quote stock ID 15090) ISBN: 9787501010424

According to a recent report, built on the Jinsha Site, the Jinsha Museum will be open to visitors as of Mid-April. Since its opening, visitors can admire the most important archeological discovery after the Sanxingdui archeological site in Sichuan Province. Discovered in February, 2001, the Jinsha Site was the most significant archaeological discovery in the 21st century in China. Thousands of gold plates, jade articles, stone wares, bronze wares and ivories of Kingdom of Shu (221 - 263) are discovered form the site. Among them the Holy Bird is the most famous one that has become the sign of China Cultural Heritage. In November of 2004, the Jinsha Site Museum began to be built on the site and after two years' construction, the advanced, world first-class museum will be opened. Covering a total area of 300,000 square meters (74 acres), the Jinsha Site Musem is a place for visitors to closely observe the excavation of archeological spot and a perfect place to learn the glorious Chinese culture of the ancient Shu Kingdom. The museum is composed of five sections: Relic Hall, Exhibition Hall, Protection Center of Cultural Relics, Garden District and Tourist Receiving Center. Not only cultural relics can be admired in the museum, some interactive games can also be participated in. As the largest museum in Sichuan, it offers visitors a good chance to taste the culture of Shu. (For this item please quote stock ID 28306) ISBN: 9787508509587

As the world's oldest continuous civilization and most populous country, with the fastest-growing economy, China is experiencing profound social, economic, and political change. A detailed exploration of the country's long, rich history paired with its complex present makes 'China' a one-of-a-kind reference that offers an eye-opening, thought-provoking and authoritative visual guide to one of the world's great nations. Beautifully commissioned photographs, spectacular 3-D aerial views, and comprehensive information help travelers to China discover both the charm and majesty of this fascinating destination. AUTHOR BIO: Written by an international team of China specialists. (For this item please quote stock ID 28462) ISBN: 9780756631598

The teacher?s manual includes a synopsis of each chapter and section, learner outcomes, definitions of key concepts, directions for student activities, and possible responses to questions posed in the student text. (For this item please quote stock ID 13142) ISBN: 9780824819859

(For this item please quote stock ID 16470) ISBN: 9781875585113

The Genesis of East Asia examines in a comprehensive and novel way the critically formative period when a culturally coherent geopolitical region identifiable as East Asia first took shape. By sifting through an impressive array of both primary material and modern interpretations, Charles Holcombe unravels what ?East Asia? means, and why. He brings to bear archaeological, textual, and linguistic evidence to elucidate how the region developed through mutual stimulation and consolidation from its highly plural origins into what we now think of as the nation-states of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.

Beginning with the Qin dynasty conquest of 221 B.C. which brought large portions of what are now Korea and Vietnam within China?s frontiers, the book goes on to examine the period of intense interaction that followed with the many scattered local tribal cultures then under China?s imperial sway as well as across its borders. Even the distant Japanese islands could not escape being profoundly transformed by developments on the mainland. Eventually, under the looming shadow of the Chinese empire, independent native states and civilisations matured for the first time in both Japan and Korea, and one frontier region, later known as Vietnam, moved toward independence.

Charles Holcombe is associate professor of history at the University of Northern Iowa.

Asian Interactions and Comparisons. Published jointly with the Association for Asian Studies

(For this item please quote stock ID 17098) ISBN: 9780824824655

Since its first publication, Paul A. Cohen's Discovering History in China has occupied a singular place in American China scholarship. Translated into three East Asian languages, the volume has become essential to the study of China from the early nineteenth century to the present. Cohen critiques the work of leading postwar scholars and adamantly opposes reading China through the lens of Western history. More specifically, he counters the strong ethnocentric bias pervading three major conceptual frameworks of American scholarship from the 1950s and 1960s: the impact-response, modernization, and imperialism approaches. In place of these, Cohen favors a "China-centered" approach by which historians strive to understand Chinese history on its own terms, paying close attention to Chinese historical trajectories and Chinese perceptions of their own problems rather than through a set of expectations derived from Western history.
In a new introduction, Cohen traces the evolution of his fifty-year career as a historian of China. He discusses major developments in the field, some of which challenge the scope of a narrowly conceived China-centered approach. These innovations enable more balanced comparison between China and the West and recast the Chinese and their history in more human, less exotic terms. Nevertheless, they still powerfully affirm the central thrust of Cohen's celebrated work.
About the Author
Paul A. Cohen is Wasserman Professor of Asian Studies and History Emeritus, Wellesley College, and an associate of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University.
(For this item please quote stock ID 20096) ISBN: 9780231151931

How Chinese ingenuity changed the world.

Acupuncture, gun powder and the secrets to spinning silk are innovations that we have come to associate with China. But did you know that the Chinese also invented the umbrella? And toilet paper, initially made from rice straw clumped together, was first used in China!

Through the ages, the Chinese have used the resources available to them to improve their lives. Their development of the compass and the paddleboat helped facilitate the often difficult tasks of travel and trade, and many foods associated with health and wellness?from green tea to tofu?have their origins in China.

Other interesting innovations include:
> the suspension bridge
> the wheelbarrow
> playing cards

With descriptive photos and information-packed text divided into sections including farming, food and games, this third book in the "Thought of It" series explores the fascinating origins of much that surrounds us today.
(For this item please quote stock ID 32868) ISBN: 9781554511952

John King Fairbank was the West's doyen on China, and this book is the full and final expression of his lifelong engagement with this vast ancient civilization. It remains a masterwork without parallel. The distinguished historian Merle Goldman brings the book up to date, covering reforms in the post-Mao period through the early years of the twenty-first century, including the leadership of Hu Jintao. She also provides an epilogue discussing the changes in contemporary China that will shape the nation in the years to come. 'China' sets out to cover the entire span of China's history from the Paleolithic cultures ... to the Tiananmen massacre of 1989, and it does so with a brisk and sprightly air but also with an awesomely thorough overview of the current scholarly work of scores of historians. The book is indeed a kind of reprise ... of Fairbank's life as a reader and teacher...An admirable achievement' - Jonathan Spence, New York Times Book Review 'One has to admire the smooth self-assurance with which Fairbank lopes through the centuries, effortlessly incorporating the latest and best in English-language scholarship, and he is, of course, hard to beat on the Republican period, to which he himself was a witness' - T. H. Barrett, Times Literary Supplement 'History, Fairbank says, is what we historians think happened, and this volume is Fairbank's distillation of what he thinks happened in China from the time of Beijing man some 400,000 years ago to the Beijing massacre of June 4, 1989. It is an ambitious, audacious undertaking, befitting the man who was the progenitor of modern China studies in the United States' - Anne F. Thurston, Boston Globe (For this item please quote stock ID 6812) ISBN: 9780674018280

Jon Burris is an American photographer and fine art consultant who has traveled to Beijing over the past thirteen years. During this period of time, he has witnessed the immense changes in the city that have transformed it into a vibrant world capital and center for contemporary art. Through his photography he has created a visual journal illustrating the transition and rapid growth of Beijing; its landmarks, traditional or newly added, such as the centuries-old Forbidden City and the futuristic skyscrapers of the central business district are shown along with a cross section of Beijingers from street market vendors, to cosmopolitan shoppers, to China's top contemporary artists in their studios. "One cannot know Beijing in a single visit; not in two, not in ten. You can only collect impressions, one upon another, overlapping images in the mind's eye, fragments of memory that layer upon layer, comprise a sense of place, of time passing, and of the future unfolding before your eyes".--Jon Burris (For this item please quote stock ID 32457) ISBN: 9787119054889

"Revival" is the first comprehensive, systematic reflection of the Chinese people since 1840 to explore the road of national development piece of television political commentator.

Filmed with a unique modern perspective, with rich and detailed historical materials and a large number of scholars inside and outside the authority of the exclusive interviews, shows the various historical stages of the Chinese people to realize the great rejuvenation of the national thinking and practice, show the new China was founded, in particular the reform and opening up 30 years China has scored remarkable achievements, to eloquent proof of the fact that: history and the people chose Marxism, select the Communist Party of China, chose socialism with Chinese characteristics only hold high the great banner of socialism, to achieve the great rejuvenation of Chinese nation.
The program was broadcast by all the attention inside and outside, is considered rare in recent years, a thoughtful, intellectual, artistic, ornamental superb masterpiece, is an excellent TV version of modern Chinese history textbooks .
(For this item please quote stock ID 32186) ISBN: 9787799819525

A History of Chinese Education Thought is a research monograph on Chinese thought on education. It systematically traces the evolution of Chinese educational thought from the pre-Qin period to 1949, analyzes the content and features of educational thought in different historical periods, and explains the basic connotations of Chinese educational thought and its positive significance in contemporary era. (For this item please quote stock ID 32236) ISBN: 9787119057521

Heroes of China?s Great Leap Forward presents contrasting narratives of the most ambitious and disastrous mass movement in modern Chinese history. The objective of the Great Leap, when it was launched in the late 1950s, was to catapult China into the ranks of the great military and industrial powers with no assistance from the outside world; it resulted in a famine that killed tens of millions of the nation?s peasants. Li Zhun?s "A Brief Biography of Li Shuangshuang," written while the movement was underway, celebrates the Great Leap as it was supposed to be: a time of optimism, dynamism, and shared purpose. A spirited young peasant woman, freed from the restrictions of home life, launches a canteen and wins the recognition of authorities and the admiration of her husband. The story?and the film that followed it-made Li Shuangshuang the greatest fictional heroine of the Great Leap. In contrast, Zhang Yigong's short novel The Story of the Criminal Li Tongzhong, written two decades later, was one of the first works published in China to suggest a much darker side to the Great Leap. A village official leads a raid on a state granary to feed starving peasants; he is later arrested and dies a criminal. Although Zhang stopped short of portraying the horrors of famine, his tone of moral outrage provides a rejoinder to the triumphalism of "Li Shuangshuang."

The stories are accompanied by an introduction to the Great Leap and portraits of the two writers, including their recollections of that traumatic time and the creation of their very different heroes.

About the Author
Richard King is director of the Centre for Asia Pacific Initiatives and associate professor of Chinese in the Department of Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Victoria.

(For this item please quote stock ID 32420) ISBN: 9780824834364

Zhang Qian, an explorer in the Han Dynasty, adventured to the Western Region twice and opened the worldly-renowned Silk Road. Zhang Qian was the first to open the gate to the Western Region, and the Silk Road that he pioneered ushered in a new era in economic and cultural exchanges between the East and the West. This brave and dedicated explorer and diplomat has made a permanent mark on the history of Sino-foreign cultural exchange. (For this item please quote stock ID 33881) ISBN: 9787508517094

For readers who want to explore the history of China, our book serves as a handy tool, presenting the 400 major points of Chinese history along a complete timeline, with comparisons between the concurrent histories of China and the rest of the world. The refined wording, along with abundant color illustrations, projects a panoramic view of the profound and lengthy history of the ancient civilization, covering important events in ChinaĦŻs political, economic, cultural, technological and social lives. For readers who want to look up specific events or figures, the INDEX guides you directly to the information you want. With this book, international readers will be given a clear vision of the major developments in Chinese history and culture. (For this item please quote stock ID 30406) ISBN: 9787119054872

In the second volume of his abridgement of Joseph Needham?s original text, Colin Ronan looks in detail at the early Chinese contributions to various sciences. The first section deals with mathematics, and it is shown that the Chinese works were comparable with the pre-Renaissance achievements of the old world. This account is written with the non-mathematician in mind. The text is next concerned with the sciences of astronomy and meteorology, followed by the Earth sciences: geography, cartography, geology, seismology and mineralogy. Volume 2 closes with a description of some aspects of Chinese physics, including their predilection for the wave theory as opposed to particles, metrology, statics, hydrostatics, heat, light and sound. Contents: >List of illustrations >List of tables >Preface >1. Mathematics >2. The sciences of the heavens: (i) astronomy >3. The sciences of the heavens: (ii) meteorology >4. The sciences of the earth: (i) geography & map-making >5. The sciences of the earth: (ii) geology & related sciences >6. Physics >Table of Chinese dynastics >Bibliography >Index (For this item please quote stock ID 12200) ISBN: 9780521315364

The book tells stories of Xuanzang, dignitary of Tang Dynasty, about his pilgrimage to the west (India) for the Buddhist scriptures based on the historical records. About 1400 years ago, the Chinese monk made a great cultural trip and covered hundreds of thousands of kilometers in 17 years despite of numerous difficulties and dangers. He left rich legacy on thought and culture and became a symbol of China-India cultural exchange. The real stories he visited Xinjiang, Middle Asia and India were thrilling with unique charms. (For this item please quote stock ID 33883) ISBN: 9787508517407

One of the most far-reaching political events since the Second World war is the re-emergence of China as a world power. In the near two decades since Chairman Mao's death, China has been opening up the once most secret and oldest surviving civilisation to the rest of the world. This comprehensive cultural history, ranging from prehistoric times to the present, examines major trends and key individuals that have shaped China's incredible history. From the disunity of pre-imperial China to the renaissance of the Tang and Sung dynasties, from the Mongol conquest to the 1989 student revolt that rocked the people's republic, the quality of each era is captured by concentrating attention on Chinese customs, beliefs and institutions. By placing the modern country that is China today in historical perspective, this fascinating study shows us how many continuities there are - despite periods of unrest and dissension - within this great and enduring civilisation. (For this item please quote stock ID 6100) ISBN: 9780712662512

'An excellent book. Roberts' account of China over the last few years is fair, balanced, perceptive and comprehensive' - Colin Mackerras, Griffith University This rich and absorbing history of China from earliest times to the present covers the country's complex political and economic structures and culture in a concise yet nuanced manner. For this new edition, Roberts has developed his analysis of recent interpretations of Chinese history, especially those relating to prehistory and early history, intellectual and cultural trends, China's relationships with her neighbours and the wider world, the rise of the Communists and the role of women in Chinese society. Contents: >>List of Maps >>Preface >>Acknowledgements >>Introduction to the First Edition >>Introduction to the Second Edition >>Maps >>The Prehistory and Early History of China >>From the Period of Division to the Tang Dynasty >>The Song and Yuan Dynasties >>The Early Modern Period: The Ming and the Early Qing >>China in the late Qing >>Republican China, 1911-49 >>China Since the 1949 Revolution >>Conclusion >>Notes >>Further Reading >>Index (For this item please quote stock ID 13823) ISBN: 9781403992758

For readers who want to explore the history of China, our book serves as a handy tool, presenting the 400 major points of Chinese history along a complete timeline, with comparisons between the concurrent histories of China and the rest of the world. The refined wording, along with abundant color illustrations, projects a panoramic view of the profound and lengthy history of the ancient civilization, covering important events in China¡¯s political, economic, cultural, technological and social lives. For readers who want to look up specific events or figures, the INDEX guides you directly to the information you want. With this book, international readers will be given a clear vision of the major developments in Chinese history and culture. (For this item please quote stock ID 34169) ISBN: 9787119067599

Common Knowledge About Chinese Culture, History and Geography are a series of readers for learners of Chinese which aim to popularize these three main subject areas. These books are lavishly illustrated and cover a wide variety of topics presented in short bilingual chapters. Common Knowledge about Chinese History is an impressive introduction to China's long history from Primitive Society to Opium War and up to the rise of Modern China. The book falls into three parts: the period before the Opium War of 1840, the Modern Period and the Contemporary Period. The whole book includes many stories about historical events and figures in ancient and modern China and could also serve as a school textbook. (For this item please quote stock ID 29961) ISBN: 9787040207170

This book talks about the excavation activities and salvage of Nanhai I wrecked ship of the Song Dynasty period in Ancient China, and construction of the Maritime Silk Road Museum. In accient times, there existed both the overland and maritime silk roads. Nanhai I is the oldest, largest, and well-preserved marchant ship of the Song Dynasty utilized for ocean trade so far and an important existing witness of the ancient Maritime Silk Road. (For this item please quote stock ID 33889) ISBN: 9787508517032

The portrayal of historical atrocity in fiction, film, and popular culture can reveal much about the function of individual memory and the shifting status of national identity. In the context of Chinese culture, films such as Hou Hsiao-hsien's City of Sadness and Lou Ye's Summer Palace and novels such as Ye Zhaoyan's Nanjing 1937: A Love Story and Wang Xiaobo's The Golden Age collectively reimagine past horrors and give rise to new historical narratives.Michael Berry takes an innovative look at the representation of six specific historical traumas in modern Chinese history: the Musha Incident (1930); the Rape of Nanjing (1937-38); the February 28 Incident (1947); the Cultural Revolution (1966-76); Tiananmen Square (1989); and the Handover of Hong Kong (1997). He identifies two primary modes of restaging historical violence: centripetal trauma, or violence inflicted from the outside that inspires a reexamination of the Chinese nation, and centrifugal trauma, which, originating from within, inspires traumatic narratives that are projected out onto a transnational vision of global dreams and, sometimes, nightmares. These modes allow Berry to connect portrayals of mass violence to ideas of modernity and the nation. He also illuminates the relationship between historical atrocity on a national scale and the pain experienced by the individual; the function of film and literature as historical testimony; the intersection between politics and art, history and memory; and the particular advantages of modern media, which have found new means of narrating the burden of historical violence. As Chinese artists began to probe previously taboo aspects of their nation's history in the final decades of the twentieth century, they created texts that prefigured, echoed, or subverted social, political, and cultural trends. A History of Pain acknowledges the far-reaching influence of this art and addresses its profound role in shaping the public imagination and conception-as well as misconception-of modern Chinese history.

(For this item please quote stock ID 34488) ISBN: 9780231141635

From the New Stone Age to the last dynasty, the 5000-year history of China unfolds before your eyes in this 900-minute 15 DVD programme. This large budget production was photographed and edited over three years - by a team of historians, archaeologists and connoisseurs of cultural relics - in more than 30 Chinese provinces and throughout Taiwan. Included is this series are not only many tremendous spectacles but awe-inspiring and stunning scenery. The origins of Chinese civilisation, the rise and fall of dynasties, the development of a unique writing system, art, architecture, pottery and handcrafts, etc, are all explored and described. This extensive set is a magnum opus of historic significance. (For this item please quote stock ID 26214) ISBN: 9787887160041

This account of China's rise to world power status is a useful guide for anyone who wants to understand this dynamic society. The study explores China's entire history, from Prehistoric times to the present day. Some aspects of China's history are hotly debated, but this book offers a path through these conflicting views on the development of China throughout history. It reveals the immense riches and sophistication of ancient China, and banishes the view of Chinese history as a long, repetitive catalogue of one dynasty following another. In drawing together the broad themes of political, social, economic and cultural history, the dramatic development of one of the world's great civilisations is brought to life. (For this item please quote stock ID 22160) ISBN: 9780750931922

China, as a country, has one of the world's most ancient civilizations. If one begins with the Paleolithic culture of prehistoric times, China has passed through the Bronze culture, the cultures of various imperial dynasties, and, finally, the modern and contemporary cultures. China: Images of a Civilization, though its brief, systematic introduction to Chinese civilization, especially its presentation of visual materials, unfolds the splendid richness and variety of Chinese national culture and gives one the feeling of reliving thoese historical and contemporary times. (For this item please quote stock ID 34011) ISBN: 9787119066844

The Chinese University of Hong Kong is the proud owner of a very special collection of rare and antiquarian Chinese books of Chinese, Japanese ad Korean origin. Some of these titles are original manuscripts and others are limited editions of block prints dating back centuries. This collection of rare books has now been painstakingly analysed, verified and authenticated by specialists from the Shanghai Library in China. In this bibliography, a total of 848 titles amounting to 14,018 volumes — which are the most valuable and rare works in the collection — are selected and annotated in Chinese. The books are classified by the traditional Chinese classification system: ‘Jing’, ‘Shi’, ‘Zi’, ‘Ji’, and ‘Cong’. Listed under each title are its author, edition, number of volumes, physical format and original publication details. (For this item please quote stock ID 16441) ISBN: 9789622019942

The Exhibition of Chinese History is a permanent exhibit at the National Museum of Chinese History in Beijing. It was opened in 1959 and has been revised, updated and augmented over the years. Based on the latest research, the exhibition presents a broad perspective of the long history of the Chinese people and nation, from the Palaeolithic Age to 1911. Exhibition of Chinese History: Illustrated Catalogue is fully and beautifully presented guide to this stunning permanent exhibit. It is divided into a number of sections, each devoted to a particular epoch or era. All photographs are fully captioned in English. (For this item please quote stock ID 1542) ISBN: 9787505405592

A movement for historical preservation is taking hold in China as more people realize the extent to which the country's historical character has already been sacrificed to economic development. For example, about 75 percent of the old city of Beijing has vanished-including hundreds of Ming-dynasty dwellings razed in favor of a new financial district. This spectacular book, both a collection of fine photography and a visual record of Chinese vernacular architecture, makes very clear that China's historic streetscapes, agricultural vistas, and villages are well worth saving.

Open Hearts Open Doors provides a visual journey to traditional villages throughout rural areas of southeastern China. Photographed between 1995 and 2006 while Elizabeth Gill Lui was a visiting artist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in the Department of Architecture, this collection of stunning images focuses on a cultural and architectural vernacular environment struggling to survive amid a dynamically transforming era in China's development.

Complementing the pictures, in bilingual text, the prestigious contributors offer their thoughts on the question of how China can balance heritage preservation and economic growth. Participants include Lui's colleagues in academia, architecture, the arts, and public service, representing such institutions as the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Columbia University School of Journalism, the Getty Conservation Institute, and Shanghai's Tongji University. The views expressed are a valuable reflection on efforts that might help to preserve China's rich cultural legacy. How preservation contributes to cultural identity is central to this discussion. An epilogue by the architect I. M. Pei closes the book with words of hope for China's future.

"The Chinese are especially proud of their cultural heritage, and it will be on this foundation that their continually evolving cultural narrative will stand. Were the world to come respectfully to China with this understanding, the Chinese would be inspired to place even greater value on their rich legacy."-from the Epilogue by I. M. Pei

"My hope is that this body of work may inspire compassionate understanding of Chinese culture and its lasting beauty, be it a tangible reality that survives or at the least a record of a past that led to a better future for a great people and a fascinating nation."-Elizabeth Gill Lui

"Elizabeth Gill Lui's photographs of rural China transform photojournalism into visual poetry. The places they feature-houses, yards, doorways, and alleys-are living spaces imbued with feeling and memory. Seemingly timeless, these beautiful images also convey a subtle sense of transformation, telling a familiar legend with a fresh voice."-Wu Hung, Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor in Chinese Art History and Director of the Center for the Art of East Asia at the University of Chicago

"The work that Elizabeth Gill Lui has done and continues to do is of great value-the beauty of her photographs, and the insight that she brings to the nexus of community, heritage, and art."-Ralph Samuelson, Director, Asian Cultural Council, New York

(For this item please quote stock ID 32126) ISBN: 9780979616532

China: Understanding Its Past aims to fill a conspicuous gap in conventional world history texts, which are often Eurocentric and give scant attention to Asia. Using role-playing, simulations, debates, primary documents, first-person accounts, excerpts from literary works, and cooperative learning activities, this text will help students explore many key aspects of China’s history and culture. The teacher’s manual includes a synopsis of each chapter and section, learner outcomes, definitions of key concepts, directions for student activities, and possible responses to questions posed in the student text. The audio CD contains selections of Chinese music from different time periods and locales. Liner notes include English translations of lyrics as well as historical information about each selection. (For this item please quote stock ID 13145) ISBN: 9780824819231

This is a collection of seven case studies which treat different aspects of political and ritual legitimation in China and Europe over the past two millennia. With a primary focus on the analysis of crisis and change, the book's main concern is how rulers and states work to produce a popular political consensus accepting their rule, an important issue in world history. (For this item please quote stock ID 25603) ISBN: 9789629962395

For nearly 100 years, Hong Kong’s famous trams have rumbled along the Island’s north shore. Today, they carry 337,000 passengers daily, charging the equivalent of 40 Australian cents for a 15 kilometre journey. Their history embraces the social and commercial fortunes of Hong Kong itself. The photographs—old and new—and engaging text of this book give you a front seat on a journey back into Hong Kong’s fascinating past. (For this item please quote stock ID 5970) ISBN: 9789622175891

This book provides a brief introduction to the long historical development of China from ancient times to the founding of the People's Republic of China. It gives an outline of contemporary Chinese geography, population, ethnicity and history, and proceeds to describe ancient human activity, and the social and historical meanings of ancient mythologies and legends. A concise account of the rise and fall of the Xia, Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han, Wei, Jin, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties is also given. Subjects include politics, economy, military affairs, culture, laws, inventions, cultural relics, etiquette and customs, as well as class relationships, relationships among ethnic groups of China, and the relationship between China and foreign countries. An enlightening description of modern social reforms completes the book. Contents: Introduction; Traces of Remote Antiquity; Myth & Legend; The Slave State of the Shang & Zhou Dynasties; The Early Eastern Zhou, Spring & Autumn, & Warring States Periods: Transition from Slavery to Feudalism; The Qin & Han Dynasties: the Growth of Feudal Society; The Three Kingdoms, the Jin, the Southern & Northern Dynasties, the Sui & the Tang: the Earlier Period of Ascendancy of Chinese Feudalism; The Five Dynasties, the Song & the Yuan: the Later Period of Ascendancy of Chinese Feudalism; The Ming-Qing Period: the Twilight of Feudalism, Semi-Colonial & Semi-Feudal Society; The Old Democratic Revolution; The Continuation of the Semi-Colonial & Semi-Feudal Society & the New-Democratic Revolution; Index. (For this item please quote stock ID 17552) ISBN: 9787119023472

Features > A New Page of the Cultural Communication between China and Europe > Fantasy in the Ancient Times >Great Age of Geographic Discovery >Matteo Ricci，the Western Confucian Coming to China >Western Vogue in the Periods of Emperor Kangxi and Emperor Qianlong (For this item please quote stock ID 28304) ISBN: 9787508509822

in 1995, this collection includes 55 beautiful colour photographs of exquisite gold and silver objects from the Tang dynasty, with concise historical background - an essential book for everyone interested in China and Chinese culture. (For this item please quote stock ID 5972) ISBN: 9789622174580

The high culture of the Tang dynasty afforded Chinese women an unparalleled opportunity to enjoy ornate clothing, jewelry, cosmetics, and other aesthetic pleasures. They enjoyed experimenting with ways to enhance their appearance and charms. They not only enthusiastically adopted the clothing styles of the foreigners who thronged the capital city of Chang’an, but were also some of the earliest cross-dressers in history! They lavished attention on their coiffures and were highly sophisticated in their use of cosmetics. Based on an exhibition in Xi’an, this books includes 40 colour photographs and informative text on the fashions of the time. (For this item please quote stock ID 5975) ISBN: 9789622174603

(For this item please quote stock ID 34726) ISBN: 9787547300671

Look no further for a comprehensive narrative of Chinese history from the fall of the Ming dynasty to the present. Beautifully written by a leading scholar in the field, the new edition of The Search for Modern China brings to life the characters and events of China’s turbulent modern history. The narrative is detailed balanced, integrating political and cultural history with social and economic developments. Spence has streamlined and thoroughly updated the text in light of new scholarship and the major new steps China has taken in the last ten years. The Search for Modern China (2nd edition), features a visually striking art program that includes more than 150 illustrations — many by world-famous photographers — 50 maps, and many helpful tables. Highlights of the Second Edition >A new final chapter covering economic, cultural, & political developments in China since 1989 >Lively, lucid prose >New discussions of: *The extension of imperial power to central Asia by eighteenth-century emperors *Women’s literacy & education during the Qing dynasty *The early development of Chinese nationalism *Roots of Chinese communism & alternatives to Mao *The domestic forces behind the Great Leap Forward & the seeds of the Cultural Revolution *Renewed diversity in thought and culture over the last two decades 'The best one-volume history of modern China. It is clear, incisive, evocative, and most of all eminently readable.' — Louis G. Perez, Illinois State University 'This is vintage Spence, carefully researched, beautifully written and designed for the widest possible reading audience.' — Roger V. Des Forges , State University of New York Buffalo 'This is a remarkable achievement. It sets a new standard.' — Suzanne Wilson Barnett, University of Puget Sound 'Extraordinary triumph of clarity and depth. Its passionate devotion to making detail serve analysis is a model of depth and texture.' — Theodore F. Cook, William Paterson College (For this item please quote stock ID 12879) ISBN: 9780393973518

The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Reader is a perfect companion to The Search for Modern China (2nd edition) and other texts for the modern China course. This collection of primary source readings combines proclamations, treaties, laws, and other public acts with works reflecting everyday life, family, social networks, and culture. Many of the documents, translated into English for the first time by Lestz and Cheng, are available only in this book. Accessible to students approaching the study of Chinese history from various backgrounds, each reading is accompanied by a headnote, and footnotes identify unfamiliar names, places, and events. Michael Lestz is professor of history and chairperson of the history department at Trinity College. Pei-kai Cheng is professor of history at Pace University in New York City. (For this item please quote stock ID 17911) ISBN: 9780393973723

1421──明成祖永樂十九年
中國人發現美洲大陸，早於哥倫布七十年；
中國人發現澳洲，先於庫克船長三百五十年；
中國人到達麥哲倫海峽，比麥哲倫的出生還早一個甲子；
中國人解決計算經度的問題，遠遠領先歐洲三個世紀。
過去的歷史課本都可以扔了，過去學的也可以遺忘，因為這本書改寫了一切。
「溥天之下，莫非王土；率土之濱，莫非王臣。」明成祖永樂十九年正月三十日，在宦官鄭和的帶領下，史上最大的艦隊從中國出發，其中不乏一百五十公尺長的巨艦。中國艦隊如同海上仙山，陣容最浩大時可以容納三萬人，船上美女如雲，然而指揮官卻都是太監。其出航的目的為「宣德化而柔遠人」，這次旅行將經歷兩年，並環遊世界一周。
當他們回航時，明成祖朱棣早已體衰勢微，中國也走上鎖國的道路。巨船朽壞，遠航的記載也遭到毀棄。從此再也沒人知道早於哥倫布七十年，中國人就發現了美洲大陸，並且在麥哲倫的一百年前便已環繞地球。除此之外，中國人更是在庫克船長的三百五十年前就發現了澳洲與南極洲，並且領先歐洲人三百年解決測量經度的問題。
作者孟席斯（Gavin Menzies）花了十五年時間研究這段中國艦隊的驚人旅程。憑藉他的生花妙筆與如山鐵證，歷史的真相如同抽絲剝繭慢慢呈現。他廣泛蒐集古地圖、領航知識、天文學以及東西方斷簡殘篇的證據，用來支持自己的論點，成功地解釋了近年所發現的艦隊沿路留下的遺物與碑文，以及中途的沉船，還有水手在各地祭拜媽祖的遺址。 (For this item please quote stock ID 25568) ISBN: 9789573267584

This is a rich and comprehensive study of beggars’ culture and the institution of mendicancy in China from late imperial times to the mid-20th century, with a glance at the resurgence of beggars in China today. Generously illustrated, the book brings to life the concepts and practices of mendicancy including organised begging, state and society relations as reflected in the issues of poverty, public opinions of beggars and various factors that contribute to almsgiving, the role of gender in begging, and street people and Communist politics. Panoramically, the reader will see that the culture and institution of Chinese mendicancy, which had its origins in earlier centuries, remained remarkably consistent through time and space and that there were perennial and lively interactions between the world of beggars and mainstream society. (For this item please quote stock ID 24850) ISBN: 9780804751483

In the epilogue to her biography of Mao Tse-tung, Jung Chang and her husband and cowriter Jon Halliday lament that, "Today, Mao's portrait and his corpse still dominate Tiananmen Square in the heart of the Chinese capital." For Chang, author of Wild Swans, this fact is an affront, not just to history, but to decency. Mao: The Unknown Story does not contain a formal dedication, but it is clear that Chang is writing to honor the millions of Chinese who fell victim to Mao's drive for absolute power in his 50-plus-year struggle to dominate China and the 20th-century political landscape. From the outset, Chang and Halliday are determined to shatter the "myth" of Mao, and they succeed with the force, not just of moral outrage, but of facts. The result is a book, more indictment than portrait, that paints Mao as a brutal totalitarian, a thug, who unleashed Stalin-like purges of millions with relish and without compunction, all for his personal gain. Through the authors' unrelenting lens even his would-be heroism as the leader of the Long March and father of modern China is exposed as reckless opportunism, subjecting his charges to months of unnecessary hardship in order to maintain the upper hand over his rival, Chang Kuo-tao, an experienced military commander.

Using exhaustive research in archives all over the world, Chang and Halliday recast Mao's ascent to power and subsequent grip on China in the context of global events. Sino-Soviet relations, the strengths and weakness of Chiang Kai-shek, the Japanese invasion of China, World War II, the Korean War, the disastrous Great Leap Forward, the vicious Cultural Revolution, the Vietnam War, Nixon's visit, and the constant, unending purges all, understandably, provide the backdrop for Mao's unscrupulous but invincible political maneuverings and betrayals. No one escaped unharmed. Rivals, families, peasants, city dwellers, soldiers, and lifelong allies such as Chou En-lai were all sacrificed to Mao's ambition and paranoia. Appropriately, the authors' consciences are appalled. Their biggest fear is that Mao will escape the global condemnation and infamy he deserves. Their astonishing book will go a long way to ensure that the pendulum of history will adjust itself accordingly. --Silvana Tropea

(For this item please quote stock ID 27101) ISBN: 9789627934196

Since the ancient times the oceans have separated the east from the west, the Han Dynasty from Rome, the Tang Dynasty from the Arabia on the opposite side of the earth, but the attraction of the different glorious civilizations finally conquered the oceans.

Starting from the Han Dynasty, to the Three kingdoms, then down to the two Jin Dynasties and prosperous Tang Dynasty, a Sea Silk Road connecting the east and the west extends from China to the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea. The most advanced sailboats carrying the silks, porcelains, and the brilliant Chinese civilizations headed for to the west by sea, bringing about the merging of ancient civilizations. On the vast oceans an invisible silk road is this formed.

(For this item please quote stock ID 31913) ISBN: 6937475392160