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The Grand Scribe's Records, Volume X
In The Grand Scribe's Records: Volume X, readers can follow Ssu-ma Qian's depiction of the later years of the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han (r. 140–87 BC). The volume begins with four chapters describing the Han's attempts to subdue states north, east, south and west of the empire. The subsequent long biography of Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju (179–117) presents one of the era's major literary figures who came to oppose the Emperor's expensive military campaigns against these states. It is followed by an equally extended portrayal of Liu An (d. 122), King of Huai-nan, who was seen as an internal threat and forced to commit suicide. The final chapters recount narratives of the ideal officials (all predating the Han) and the Confucians the Emperor championed.
Mooring the Global Archive
Martin Dusinberre follows the Yamashiro-maru steamship across Asian and Pacific waters in an innovative history of Japan's engagement with the outside world in the late-nineteenth century. This compelling in-depth analysis reconstructs the lives of some of the thousands of male and female migrants who left Japan for work in Hawai'i, Southeast Asia and Australia. These stories bring together transpacific historiographies of settler colonialism, labour history and resource extraction in new ways. Drawing on an unconventional and deeply material archive, from gravestones to government files, paintings to song, and from digitized records to the very earth itself, Dusinberre addresses key questions of method and authorial positionality in the writing of global history. This engaging investigation into archival practice asks, what is the global archive, where is it cited, and who are 'we' as we cite it? This title is also available as Open Access.
Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies
The notion of the “Silk Road” that the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen invented in the 19th century has lost attraction to scholars in light of large amounts of new evidence and new approaches. The handbook suggests new conceptual and methodological tools for researching ancient economic exchange in a global perspective with a strong focus on recent debates on the nature of pre-modern empires. The interdisciplinary team of Chinese, Indian and Graeco-Roman historians, archaeologists and anthropologists that has written this handbook compares different forms of economic development in agrarian and steppe regions in a period of accelerated empire formation during 300 BCE and 300 ...
The Embodied Text
In The Embodied Text Matthias L. Richter offers an exemplary study of a 300 BCE Chinese manuscript, exploring significant differences between the Warring States manuscript text and its transmitted early imperial counterparts. These differences reveal the adaptation of the text to a changed political environment as well as general ideological developments. This study further demonstrates how the physical embodiment of the text in the manuscript reflects modes of textual formation and social uses of written texts.
Literate Community in Early Imperial China
Winner of the 2020 James Henry Breasted Prize in Ancient History presented by the American Historical Association Honorable Mention, 2021 Joseph Levenson Pre-1900 Book Prize presented by the Association for Asian Studies This book examines ancient written materials from China's northwestern border regions to offer fresh insights into the role of text in shaping society and culture during the Han period (206/2 BCE–220 CE). Left behind by military installations, these documents—wooden strips and other nontraditional textual materials such as silk—recorded the lives and activities of military personnel and the people around them. Charles Sanft explores their functions and uses by looking ...
State Power and Governance in Early Imperial China
State Power and Governance in Early Imperial China delves into the governance and capacity of the state by providing an empirical historical study of the collapse of China's Qin Empire. In contrast to the popular view that the Qin fell suddenly and dramatically, this book argues that the collapse was rooted in persistent structural problems of the empire, including the serious resource shortages experienced by local governments, inefficient communication between administrative units, and social tensions in the new territories. Rather than reducing Qin rulers to heartless villains who refused to adjust their policies and statecraft, this book focuses on the changes that the regime did make to meet these challenges. It reveals the various measures that Qin rulers devised to solve these problems, even if they were ultimately to no avail. The paradox of the Qin Empire seemed to be that, although the regime's policies and reforms could theoretically have strengthened the state's power and improved the governance of the empire, their ramifications simultaneously exacerbated the misfunction of local governments and triggered the military failures that eventually destroyed the empire.
Dubious Facts
What were the intentions of early China's historians? Modern readers must contend with the tension between the narrators' moralizing commentary and their description of events. Although these historians had notions of evidence, it is not clear to what extent they valued what contemporary scholars would deem "hard" facts. Offering an innovative approach to premodern historical documents, Garret P. S. Olberding argues that the speeches of court advisors reveal subtle strategies of information management in the early monarchic context. Olberding focuses on those addresses concerning military campaigns where evidence would be important in guiding immediate social and political policy. His analysis reveals the sophisticated conventions that governed the imperial advisor's logic and suasion in critical state discussions, which were specifically intended to counter anticipated doubts. Dubious Facts illuminates both the decision-making processes that informed early Chinese military campaigns and the historical records that represent them.
Han-Zeit
Aus dem Inhalt (47 Beitrage): Bekenntnisse und GestandnisseW. Kubin, Von Muttern, Vatern und Lehrern: Nachdenken uber liebgewordene Bilder Geist und MachtTh. Frohlich, Vom Zugang zu Machthabern: Macht und Autoritat im politischen Denken Chinas Konfuzius und die FolgenW. G. Boltz, Between Two Pillars: The Death-dream of ConfuciusSprache und DenkenH. Roetz, Worte als Namen: Anmerkungen zu Xunzi und Dong Zhongshu Arbeit am TextM. Richter, Der Alte und das Wasser: Lesarten von Laozi 8 im uberlieferten Text und in den Manuskripten von Mawangdui Freude an FragmentenM. Fruhauf, Vom Stichwort suanni in der han-zeitlichen Synonymik Erya: Zur Frage der Existenz von Lowen im archaischen und antiken China Form und SinnH. Sonnichsen, Zur Prosodie der "Neunzehn Alten Gedichte" Die Guten und die BosenR. Th. Kolb, "Ubeltater, Racher und Rebellen", Die han-zeitlichen "Jungen Manner" (shaonian) Graber und GelehrteH.-J. Rollicke, Die "Als-ob"-Struktur der Riten: Ein Beitrag zur Ritualhermeneutik der Zhanguo- und Han-Zeit
Literary Forms of Argument in Early China
Literary Forms of Argument in Early China explores formal approaches to the study of philosophical texts to present new methods for the analysis of pre-modern thought in China. Attempts made by Chinese thinkers to generate literary forms of philosophical reasoning have gone unrecognised within scholarship in China and the West. Drawing together the expertise of leading scholars of early Chinese textuality, this volume addresses this omission by examining the formal characteristics of an argument, the interrelationship between form and content, as well as patterned compositions and non-linear semantic utterances. With these comprehensive new readings, the volume makes a landmark contribution to the study of written thinking in early China. Contributors include: Wim De Reu, Joachim Gentz, Christoph Harbsmeier, Martin Kern, Dirk Meyer, Michael Nylan, Andrew H. Plaks, David Schaberg, Rudolf G. Wagner.
Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies
The Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies offers in three volumes the first comprehensive discussion of economic development in the empires of the Afro-Eurasian world region to elucidate the conditions under which large quantities of goods and people moved across continents and between empires. Volume 3: Frontier-Zone Processes and Transimperial Exchange analyzes frontier zones as particular landscapes of encounter, economic development, and transimperial network formation. The chapters offer problematizing approaches to frontier zone processes as part of and in between empires, with the goal of better understanding how and why goods and resources moved across the Afro-Eurasian region. Key frontiers in mountains and steppes, along coasts, rivers, and deserts are investigated in depth, demonstrating how local landscapes, politics, and pathways explain network practices and participation in long-distance trade. The chapters seek to retrieve local knowledge ignored in popular Silk Road models and to show the potential of frontier-zone research for understanding the Afro-Eurasian region as a connected space.
