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This volume begins the historical coverage of The Cambridge History of China with the establishment of the Ch'in empire in 221 BC and ends with the abdication of the last Han emperor in AD 220. Spanning four centuries, this period witnessed major evolutionary changes in almost every aspect of China's development, being particularly notable for the emergence and growth of a centralized administration and imperial government. Leading historians from Asia, Europe, and America have contributed chapters that convey a realistic impression of significant political, economic, intellectual, religious, and social developments, and of the contacts that the Chinese made with other peoples at this time. As the book is intended for the general reader as well as the specialist, technical details are given in both Chinese terms and English equivalents. References lead to primary sources and their translations and to secondary writings in European languages as well as Chinese and Japanese.
This book is the first major reassessment of ancient Chinese religion to appear in recent years. It provides a historical investigation of broadly shared religious beliefs and goals in ancient China from the earliest period to the end of the Han Dynasty. The author makes use of recently acquired archeological data, traditional texts, and modern scholarly work from China, Japan, and the West. The overall concern of this book is to try to reach the religious mentality of the ancient Chinese in the context of personal and daily experiences. Poo deals with such problems as the definition of religion, the popular/elite controversy in methodology, and the use of "elite" documents in the study of ordinary life.
Translation based on the original, handwritten diary entitled: Tung-pei chieh shou chiao she jih chi. Includes index.
A new interpretation of some of the great works of Chinese fiction of the late Ming dynasty In this book, Andrew Plaks reinterprets the great texts of Chinese fiction known as the “Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel” (ssu ta ch'i-shu). Arguing that these are far more than collections of popular narratives, Plaks shows that their fullest critical revisions represent a sophisticated new genre of Chinese prose fiction arising in the late Ming dynasty, especially in the sixteenth century. He then analyzes these radical transformations of prior source materials, which reflect the values and intellectual concerns of the literati of the period.
An in-depth investigation of selected aspects of Chinese history during the Nanking Decade, illuminating the forces that prevented the re-creation of national unity and vitality under Chiang Kai-sheck and the Kuomintang nationalists.
A Taoist adept provides a reader-friendly interpretation of the Taoist teachings on health and longevity The teachings of Taoism, China's great wisdom tradition, apply to every aspect of life, from the physical to the spiritual—and include instruction on everything from lifestyle (a life of simplicity and moderation is best) to the work of inner alchemy that is said to lead to longevity and immortality. Here, Eva Wong presents and explains three classic texts on understanding the Tao in the macrocosm of the universe and the microcosm of the body that provide an excellent overview of the three traditional levels of the Taoist teachings—Outer, Inner, and Secret. The Outer teachings are con...
The present work is a study on the formation of the Shih-ching. The author poses the hypothesis that this collection of poems, as the standard music and literature passed down to later generations, initially incorporated different cultural heritages through a process which moved from ritualization to secularization, as well as standardization to localization. In aiming to find the origins of the division of the Shih-ching into sections and subsections and their titles, as "Nan," "Feng," "Ya," and "Sung," the author employs an interdisciplinary methodology, combining ethno-musicological methods with paleography, philology, and archaeology. He draws on new archaeological data of the past two decades that has shed new light on the Shih-ching.