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First Published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
The Moon Year is a facinating recording the mysterious and somewhat elusive traditions of the Chinese. Juliet Bredon and Igor Mitrophanow trace their way through the intimate life of Chinese religion, superstitions, philosophies, customs, and society. Only after a year's residence in China are the authors able to gather an intimate perspective on this age-old civilization that has withstood the test of time. Bredon and Mitrophanow unravel some of the puzzles that surround this fascinating culture, through detailed description of the everyday beliefs of the Chinese people and the festivals of their 'Moon Calendar, ' used as a diary of daily happenings. As the original printing of this book was in 1927, many of these rites may no longer exist, further emphasizing the importance of Bredon and Mitrophanow's work. Much of the material for The Moon Year was gathered first-hand from people they met along their journey, as well as from rare Chinese books and texts, resulting in a refreshingly honest exploration of a great civilization.
"The social structure of contemporary Korea contains strong echoes of the hierarchical principles and patterns governing stratification in the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910): namely, birth and one’s position in the bureaucracy. At the beginning of Korea’s modern era, the bureaucracy continued to exert great influence, but developments undermined, instead of reinforced, aristocratic dominance. Furthermore, these changes elevated the secondary status groups of the Chosŏn dynasty, those who had belonged to hereditary, endogamous tiers of government and society between the aristocracy and the commoners: specialists in foreign languages, law, medicine, and accounting; the clerks who ran local...
In what is today Malaysia, the British established George Town on Penang Island in 1786, and encouraged Chinese merchants and laborers to migrate to this vibrant trading port. In the multicultural urban settlement that developed, the Chinese immigrants organized their social life through community temples like the Guanyin Temple (Kong Hok Palace) and their secret sworn brotherhoods. These community associations assumed exceptional importance precisely because they were a means to establish a social presence for the Chinese immigrants, to organize their social life, and to display their economic prowess. The Confucian "cult of memory" also took on new meanings in the early twentieth century a...
Provides a lively description of how the cult of a popular plague-fighting deity named Marshal Wen arose and spread in late imperial China.
Native America can look to few more inventive contemporary writers than Gerald Vizenor. This work discusses his childhood in the Minneapolis of the Depression and World War II to his becoming a professor of Native American Studies at the University of Berkeley.
This comprehensive study of the traditional Chinese craft of paper sculpture documents the ancient craft as it exists today in Taiwan.
First published in 2006. This book by Stephen Graham is a supremely unique take on travel through Russia and the Caucasus. Graham takes to the road in a modest fashion, with a bag and his camera at his side. As he arrives in Moscow not long after the Russian Revolution in 1917 he is not welcomed with open arms. Instead, Graham is greeted by a group of soldiers as he walks down the street and is arrested. He recounts this experience, as well as every moment of his time spent 'vagabonding' across the Caucasus with glorious detail. His photographs to accompany the text capture the fleeting moments of this politically heated time in Russia with candid accuracy. This momentous work is not to be overlooked by anyone interested in travel or history, or anyone with a taste for an unconventional account of the land of the Caucasus.
By Lt. General William E. Odom