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Recent archaeological finds in China have made possible a reconstruction of the ancient history of Sichauan, the country's most populous province. Excavated artifacts and newly recovered texts can now supplement traditional textual materials. Combing these materials, Sage shows how Sichauan matured from peripheral obscurity to attain central importance in the formation of the Chinese empire during the first millennium B.C.
In this study, Leo Shin traces the roots of China's modern ethnic configurations to the Ming Dynasty.
A comprehensive introduction in English to Sinological methods and traditional Chinese historical writing. The time span ranges from earliest times to 1911, with special emphasis on the years between the third century B.C. and the eighteenth century. The author includes introductions to major reference works and biographical information, and explanations of such matters as converting traditional dates. In addition to standard histories, the survey covers biographical writing, historical and administrative geography, works on statecraft, archival sources, and Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist writings.
In Search of Admiration and Respect examines the institutionalization of Chinese cultural diplomacy in the period between high imperialism and the international ascendance of the People's Republic of China. During these years, Chinese intellectuals and officials tried to promote the idea of China's cultural refinement in an effort to combat negative perceptions of the nation. Yanqiu Zheng argues that, unlike similar projects by more established powers, Chinese cultural diplomacy in this era was not carried out solely by a functional government agency; rather, limited resources forced an uneasy collaboration between the New York-based China Institute and the Chinese Nationalist government. In...
Includes entries for maps and atlases.
This pathbreaking work argues that literate gentry women in 17th-century Jiangnan, far from being oppressed or silenced, created a rich culture and meaningful existence within the constraints of the Confucian system. Momentous socioeconomic and intellectual changes in 17th-century Jiangnan provided the stimulus for the flowering of women's culture. The most salient of these changes included a flourishing of commercial publishing, the rise of a reading public, a new emphasis on emotions, the promotion of women's education, and, more generally, the emergence of new definitions of womanhood. The author reconstructs the social, emotional and intellectual worlds of 17th-century women, and in doing so provides a new way to conceptualize China's past, one offering a more realistic and complete understanding of the values of Chinese culture and the functioning of Chinese society.
The extensive ritual and mythological lore of the Chinese Triads form the scope of this new paperback in Brill’s Scholar’s List. In it the reader will find a critical evaluation of the extant sources together with a true wealth of context. The core of the book is formed by a close reading of the initiation ritual, including the burning of incense, the altar, the enactment of a journey of life and death, and the blood covenant. Different narrative structures are also presented. These include the messianic demonological paradigm, political legitimation, and the foundation of myth. Triad lore is placed in its own religious and cultural context, allowing radically new conclusions about its origins, meanings and functions. This book is of special interest to social historians, anthropologists, and students of Chinese religious culture.
This book takes an innovative approach to one of the great figures of Chinese culture, the writer and painter Wen Zhengming (1470–1559). Renowned as one of the great “scholar painters” of the Ming dynasty, Wen was enmeshed in a complex web of social obligations, his “elegant debts” as he called them, which led to many of his most celebrated works. Using an unprecedented quantity of primary sources for his life and work, Elegant Debts looks at the ways in which social obligation and gift exchange were central to personal and individual identity in the Ming period. The book also examines Wen’s family relationships, his friends, mentors, and pupils, his sense of a distinct local ide...