Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
In Search of Personal Welfare
The first major reassessment of ancient Chinese religion to appear in recent years, this book presents the religious mentality of the period through personal and daily experiences.
Ghosts and Religious Life in Early China
For modern people, ghost stories are no more than thrilling entertainment. For those living in antiquity, ghosts were far more serious beings, as they could affect the life and death of people and cause endless fear and anxiety. How did ancient societies imagine what ghosts looked like, what they could do, and how people could deal with them? From the vantage point of modernity, what can we learn about an obscure, but no less important aspect of an ancient culture? In this volume, Mu-chou Poo explores the ghosts of ancient China, the ideas that they nurtured, and their role in its culture. His study provides fascinating insights into the interaction between the idea of ghosts and religious activities, literary imagination, and social life devoted to them. Comparing Chinese ghosts with those of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, Poo also offers a wider perspective on the role of ghosts in human history.
Daily Life in Ancient China
This book employs textual and archaeological material to reconstruct the various features of daily life in ancient China.
Enemies of Civilization
Enemies of Civilization is a work of comparative history and cultural consciousness that discusses how "others" were perceived in three ancient civilizations: Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China. Each civilization was the dominant culture in its part of the world, and each developed a mind-set that regarded itself as culturally superior to its neighbors. Mu-chou Poo compares these societies' attitudes toward other cultures and finds differences and similarities that reveal the self-perceptions of each society. Notably, this work shows that in contrast to modern racism based on biophysical features, such prejudice did not exist in these ancient societies. It was culture rather than biophysical nature that was the most important criterion for distinguishing us from them. By examining how societies conceive their prejudices, this book breaks new ground in the study of ancient history and opens new ways to look at human society, both ancient and modern.
Rethinking Ghosts in World Religions
The central theme of this volume is to re-examine the received concepts and images of ghosts in various religious cultures ranging from the Ancient Near East and Egypt to the Old Testament, the Classical Era, Early Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Early India, and Medieval China. As a religious phenomenon, the realm of ghosts has been less studied than the realm of the divine. Through a collaborative effort by scholars from different disciplines, this volume proposes a multi-cultural approach to construct a wider and complicated picture of the phenomenon of ghosts and spirits in human societies and to have a grasp of the various problems involved in understanding the phenomenon of ghost.
Wine & Wine Offering In The Religion Of Ancient Egypt
First published in 1995. Striking a niche among an intensely studied literary civilization, this title assesses the meaning of wine and wine offering in the context of Egyptian religion by presenting observations about the implication of this study for the study of Egyptian religion in general. Ancient Egypt has yielded the outlines of its religious, political, economic, and social institutions. Yet, we know relatively little of the actual process through which an object of daily life, such as wine, was integrated into the religious system. Scholars have studied various ritual offerings in Egyptian religion and clarified the religious significance of the offering objects. This title aims to fill a gap in knowledge in a similar fashion.
The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800
In the twenty-first century, China has emerged as the leading challenger to U.S. global dominance. China is often seen as a sleeping giant, emerging out of poverty, backwardness, and totalitarianism and moving toward modernization. However, history shows that this vast country is not newly awakening, but rather returning to its previous state of world eminence. With this compelling perspective in mind, D. E. Mungello convincingly shows that contemporary relations between China and the West are far more like the 1500-1800 period than the more recent past. This fully revised second edition retains the clear and concise qualities of its predecessor, while developing important new social and cultural themes such as gender, sexuality, music, and technology. Drawing from the author's thirty years of experience teaching world history, this book illustrates the importance of history to students and general readers trying to understand today's world.
Politics and Religion in Ancient and Medieval Europe and China
Seven, diverse papers, written by ancient and medieval historians, are collected in this volume. These papers were presented at the academic conference "Politics and Religion in Ancient and Medieval Europe and Asia," organized by the Department of History and New Asia College of The Chinese University of Hong Kong in March 1996. Although the papers vary widely in the region and time-span, they are joined by their concern about the relationship between politics and different religions Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism and others in ancient and medieval Europe and Asia.
Daily Life in Ancient China
In this volume, Mu-chou Poo offers a new overview of daily life in ancient China. Synthesizing a range of textual and archaeological materials, he brings a thematic approach to the topic that enables a multi-faceted understanding of the ideological, economical, legal, social, and emotional aspects of life in ancient China. The volume focuses on the Han period and examines key topics such as government organization and elite ideology, urban and country life, practical technology, leisure and festivity, and death and burial customs. Written in clear and engaging prose, this volume serves as a useful introduction to the culture and society of ancient China. It also enables students to better understand the construction of history and to reflect critically on the nature of historical writing.
The Magnitude of Ming
Few ideas in Chinese discourse are as ubiquitous as ming, variously understood as "command," "allotted lifespan," "fate," or "life." This volume assembles twelve essays by some of the most eminent scholars currently working in Chinese studies to consider ming's broad web of meanings
