State versus Gentry in Late Ming Dynasty China, 1572–1644

State versus Gentry in Late Ming Dynasty China, 1572–1644 PDF Author: H. Miller
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230617875
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
This book looks at the bitter factionalism in the last days of China's Ming Dynasty as an ideological struggle between scholar-officials who believed that sovereignty resided in the imperial state and those who believed that it resided with the learned gentry.

State versus Gentry in Late Ming Dynasty China, 1572–1644

State versus Gentry in Late Ming Dynasty China, 1572–1644 PDF Author: H. Miller
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230617875
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
This book looks at the bitter factionalism in the last days of China's Ming Dynasty as an ideological struggle between scholar-officials who believed that sovereignty resided in the imperial state and those who believed that it resided with the learned gentry.

State versus Gentry in Early Qing Dynasty China, 1644-1699

State versus Gentry in Early Qing Dynasty China, 1644-1699 PDF Author: H. Miller
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137334061
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 157

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Book Description
Continuing the argument developed in the author's previous book, this exhaustively researched study describes the humiliation of the Chinese gentry at the hands of the statist Oboi regents in the 1660s and the Kangxi emperor's self-declared Confucian sagehood in the 1670s, which effectively trumped the gentry's claim to sovereignty.

The Military Collapse of China's Ming Dynasty, 1618-44

The Military Collapse of China's Ming Dynasty, 1618-44 PDF Author: Kenneth M. Swope
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134462166
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
This book examines the military collapse of China’s Ming Dynasty to a combination of foreign and domestic foes. The Ming’s defeat was a highly surprising development, not least because as recently as in the 1590s the Ming had managed to defeat a Japanese force considered to be perhaps the most formidable of its day when the latter attempted to subjugate Korea en-route to a planned invasion of China. In contrast to conventional explanations for the Ming’s collapse, which focus upon political and socio-economic factors, this book shows how the military collapse of the Ming state was intimately connected to the deterioration of the personal relationship between the Ming throne and the military establishment that had served as the cornerstone of the Ming military renaissance of the previous decades. Moreover, it examines the broader process of the militarization of late Ming society as a whole to arrive at an understanding of how a state with such tremendous military resources and potential could be defeated by numerically and technologically inferior foes. It concludes with a consideration of the fall of the Ming in light of contemporary conflicts and regime changes around the globe, drawing attention to climatological factors and developments outside state control. Utilizing recently released archival materials, this book adds a much needed piece to the puzzle of the collapse of the Ming Dynasty in China.

Ming China, 1368-1644

Ming China, 1368-1644 PDF Author: John W. Dardess
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442204907
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
This engaging, deeply informed book provides the first concise history of one of China's most important eras. Leading scholar John W. Dardess offers a thematically organized political, social, and economic exploration of China from 1368 to 1644. He examines how the Ming dynasty was able to endure for 276 years, illuminating Ming foreign relations and border control, the lives and careers of its sixteen emperors, its system of governance and the kinds of people who served it, its great class of literati, and finally the mass outlawry that, in unhappy conjunction with the Manchu invasions from outside, ended the once-mighty dynasty in the mid-seventeenth century. The Ming witnessed the beginning of China's contact with the West, and its story will fascinate all readers interested in global as well as Asian history.

On the Trail of the Yellow Tiger

On the Trail of the Yellow Tiger PDF Author: Kenneth Swope
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496206266
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 454

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Book Description
The Manchu Qing victory over the Chinese Ming Dynasty in the mid-seventeenth century was one of the most surprising and traumatic developments in China’s long history. In the last year of the Ming, the southwest region of China became the base of operations for the notorious leader Zhang Xianzhong (1605–47), a peasant rebel known as the Yellow Tiger. Zhang’s systematic reign of terror allegedly resulted in the deaths of at least one-sixth of the population of the entire Sichuan province in just two years. The rich surviving source record, however, indicates that much of the destruction took place well after Zhang’s death in 1647 and can be attributed to independent warlords, marauding bandits, the various Ming and Qing armies vying for control of the empire, and natural disasters. On the Trail of the Yellow Tiger is the first Western study to examine in detail the aftermath of the Qing conquest by focusing on the social and demographic effects of the Ming-Qing transition. By integrating the modern techniques of trauma and memory studies into the military and social history of the transition, Kenneth M. Swope adds a crucial piece to the broader puzzle of dynastic collapse and reconstruction. He also considers the Ming-Qing transition in light of contemporary conflicts around the globe, offering a comparative military history that engages with the universal connections between war and society.

Brush, Seal and Abacus

Brush, Seal and Abacus PDF Author: Zhao Jie
Publisher: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press
ISBN: 9629967766
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
This book is a study of the social and cultural change in Ming China's lower Yangzi delta region from about 1500 to 1644. It takes three social groups—literati, scholarofficials and merchants—as the framework for discussing the political, socioeconomic and cultural forces that coalesced and reinforced one another to influence and facilitate the region’s change. A still wider perspective reveals how the region’s political ties with the state and commercial links with external markets impacted the region for better and for worse. The book also discusses the literati's reflection and discourse, which their participation in the change generated, on the issues of morality, money, politics and disorder. The reader, when brought into the richly textured social and cultural life of Ming China's heartland, will foster an appreciation of what it was like for the region and its people to live in an age of commercial and cultural vigor, which then descended into distress and despair. For scholars and for others conversant with Chinese history, and Ming history in particular, the extensive use of literati sources and the references to contemporary scholarship will be of interest.

Routledge Handbook of Imperial Chinese History

Routledge Handbook of Imperial Chinese History PDF Author: Victor Cunrui Xiong
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317538226
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 525

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Book Description
The resurgence of modern China has generated much interest, not only in the country’s present day activities, but also in its long history. As the only uninterrupted ancient civilization still alive today, the study of China’s past promises to offer invaluable insights into understanding contemporary China. Providing coverage of the entire Imperial Era (221 BCE–1912 CE), this handbook takes a chronological approach. It includes comprehensive analysis of all major periods, from the powerful Han empire which rivalled Rome, and the crucial transformative period of the Five Dynasties, to the prosperous Ming era and the later dominance of the non-Han peoples. With contributions from a team of international authors, key themes include: Political events and leadership Religion and philosophy Cultural and literary achievements Legal, economic, and military institutions This book transcends the traditional boundaries of historiography, giving special attention to the role of archaeology. As such, the Routledge Handbook of Imperial Chinese History is an indispensable reference work for students and scholars of Chinese, Asian, and World History.

The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture

The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture PDF Author: Richard J. Smith
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442221941
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 625

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Book Description
The Qing dynasty (1636–1912)—a crucial bridge between “traditional” and “modern” China—was remarkable for its expansiveness and cultural sophistication. This engaging and insightful history of Qing political, social, and cultural life traces the complex interaction between the Inner Asian traditions of the Manchus, who conquered China in 1644, and indigenous Chinese cultural traditions. Noted historian Richard J. Smith argues that the pragmatic Qing emperors presented a “Chinese” face to their subjects who lived south of the Great Wall and other ethnic faces (particularly Manchu, Mongolian, Central Asian, and Tibetan) to subjects in other parts of their vast multicultural empire. They were attracted by many aspects of Chinese culture, but far from being completely “sinicized” as many scholars argue, they were also proud of their own cultural traditions and interested in other cultures as well. Setting Qing dynasty culture in historical and global perspective, Smith shows how the Chinese of the era viewed the world; how their outlook was expressed in their institutions, material culture, and customs; and how China’s preoccupation with order, unity, and harmony contributed to the civilization’s remarkable cohesiveness and continuity. Nuanced and wide-ranging, his authoritative book provides an essential introduction to late imperial Chinese culture and society.

Encyclopedia of Chinese History

Encyclopedia of Chinese History PDF Author: Michael Dillon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131781715X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 1223

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Book Description
China has become accessible to the west in the last twenty years in a way that was not possible in the previous thirty. The number of westerners travelling to China to study, for business or for tourism has increased dramatically and there has been a corresponding increase in interest in Chinese culture, society and economy and increasing coverage of contemporary China in the media. Our understanding of China’s history has also been evolving. The study of history in the People’s Republic of China during the Mao Zedong period was strictly regulated and primary sources were rarely available to westerners or even to most Chinese historians. Now that the Chinese archives are open to researchers, there is a growing body of academic expertise on history in China that is open to western analysis and historical methods. This has in many ways changed the way that Chinese history, particularly the modern period, is viewed. The Encyclopedia of Chinese History covers the entire span of Chinese history from the period known primarily through archaeology to the present day. Treating Chinese history in the broadest sense, the Encyclopedia includes coverage of the frontier regions of Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet that have played such an important role in the history of China Proper and will also include material on Taiwan, and on the Chinese diaspora. In A-Z format with entries written by experts in the field of Chinese Studies, the Encyclopedia will be an invaluable resource for students of Chinese history, politics and culture.

Confucian Image Politics

Confucian Image Politics PDF Author: Ying Zhang
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295806729
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
During the Ming-Qing transition (roughly from the 1570s to the 1680s), literati-officials in China employed public forms of writing, art, and social spectacle to present positive moral images of themselves and negative images of their rivals. The rise of print culture, the dynastic change, and the proliferating approaches to Confucian moral cultivation together gave shape to this new political culture. Confucian Image Politics considers the moral images of officials—as fathers, sons, husbands, and friends—circulated in a variety of media inside and outside the court. It shows how power negotiations took place through participants’ invocations of Confucian ethical ideals in political attacks, self-expression, self-defense, discussion of politically sensitive issues, and literati community rebuilding after the dynastic change. This first book-length study of early modern Chinese politics from the perspective of critical men’s history shows how images—the Donglin official, the Fushe scholar, the turncoat figure—were created, circulated, and contested to serve political purposes.