Author: Michael Nylan
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295806419
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 656
Book Description
During the last two centuries BCE, the Western Han capital of Chang'an, near today's Xi'an in northwest China, outshone Augustan Rome in several ways while administering comparable numbers of imperial subjects and equally vast territories. At its grandest, during the last fifty years or so before the collapse of the dynasty in 9 CE, Chang�an boasted imperial libraries with thousands of documents on bamboo and silk in a city nearly three times the size of Rome and nearly four times larger than Alexandria. Many reforms instituted in this capital in ate Western Han substantially shaped not only the institutions of the Eastern Han (25�220 CE) but also the rest of imperial China until 1911. Although thousands of studies document imperial Rome�s glory, until now no book-length work in a Western language has been devoted to Han Chang�an, the reign of Emperor Chengdi (whose accomplishments rival those of Augustus and Hadrian), or the city's impressive library project (26-6 BCE), which ultimately produced the first state-sponsored versions of many of the classics and masterworks that we hold in our hands today. Chang�an 26 BCE addresses this deficiency, using as a focal point the reign of Emperor Chengdi (r. 33�7 bce), specifically the year in which the imperial library project began. This in-depth survey by some of the world�s best scholars, Chinese and Western, explores the built environment, sociopolitical transformations, and leading figures of Chang�an, making a strong case for the revision of historical assumptions about the two Han dynasties. A multidisciplinary volume representing a wealth of scholarly perspectives, the book draws on the established historical record and recent archaeological discoveries of thousands of tombs, building foundations, and remnants of walls and gates from Chang�an and its surrounding area.
Chang'an 26 BCE
Author: Michael Nylan
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295806419
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 656
Book Description
During the last two centuries BCE, the Western Han capital of Chang'an, near today's Xi'an in northwest China, outshone Augustan Rome in several ways while administering comparable numbers of imperial subjects and equally vast territories. At its grandest, during the last fifty years or so before the collapse of the dynasty in 9 CE, Chang�an boasted imperial libraries with thousands of documents on bamboo and silk in a city nearly three times the size of Rome and nearly four times larger than Alexandria. Many reforms instituted in this capital in ate Western Han substantially shaped not only the institutions of the Eastern Han (25�220 CE) but also the rest of imperial China until 1911. Although thousands of studies document imperial Rome�s glory, until now no book-length work in a Western language has been devoted to Han Chang�an, the reign of Emperor Chengdi (whose accomplishments rival those of Augustus and Hadrian), or the city's impressive library project (26-6 BCE), which ultimately produced the first state-sponsored versions of many of the classics and masterworks that we hold in our hands today. Chang�an 26 BCE addresses this deficiency, using as a focal point the reign of Emperor Chengdi (r. 33�7 bce), specifically the year in which the imperial library project began. This in-depth survey by some of the world�s best scholars, Chinese and Western, explores the built environment, sociopolitical transformations, and leading figures of Chang�an, making a strong case for the revision of historical assumptions about the two Han dynasties. A multidisciplinary volume representing a wealth of scholarly perspectives, the book draws on the established historical record and recent archaeological discoveries of thousands of tombs, building foundations, and remnants of walls and gates from Chang�an and its surrounding area.
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295806419
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 656
Book Description
During the last two centuries BCE, the Western Han capital of Chang'an, near today's Xi'an in northwest China, outshone Augustan Rome in several ways while administering comparable numbers of imperial subjects and equally vast territories. At its grandest, during the last fifty years or so before the collapse of the dynasty in 9 CE, Chang�an boasted imperial libraries with thousands of documents on bamboo and silk in a city nearly three times the size of Rome and nearly four times larger than Alexandria. Many reforms instituted in this capital in ate Western Han substantially shaped not only the institutions of the Eastern Han (25�220 CE) but also the rest of imperial China until 1911. Although thousands of studies document imperial Rome�s glory, until now no book-length work in a Western language has been devoted to Han Chang�an, the reign of Emperor Chengdi (whose accomplishments rival those of Augustus and Hadrian), or the city's impressive library project (26-6 BCE), which ultimately produced the first state-sponsored versions of many of the classics and masterworks that we hold in our hands today. Chang�an 26 BCE addresses this deficiency, using as a focal point the reign of Emperor Chengdi (r. 33�7 bce), specifically the year in which the imperial library project began. This in-depth survey by some of the world�s best scholars, Chinese and Western, explores the built environment, sociopolitical transformations, and leading figures of Chang�an, making a strong case for the revision of historical assumptions about the two Han dynasties. A multidisciplinary volume representing a wealth of scholarly perspectives, the book draws on the established historical record and recent archaeological discoveries of thousands of tombs, building foundations, and remnants of walls and gates from Chang�an and its surrounding area.
Heavenly Numbers
Author: Christopher Cullen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198733119
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 441
Book Description
This book is a history of the development of mathematical astronomy in China, from the late third century BCE, to the early 3rd century CE - a period often referred to as 'early imperial China'. It narrates the changes in ways of understanding the movements of the heavens and the heavenly bodies that took place during those four and a half centuries, and tells the stories of the institutions and individuals involved in those changes. It gives clear explanations of technical practice in observation, instrumentation, and calculation, and the steady accumulation of data over many years - but it centres on the activity of the individual human beings who observed the heavens, recorded what they saw, and made calculations to analyse and eventually make predictions about the motions of the celestial bodies. It is these individuals, their observations, their calculations, and the words they left to us that provide the narrative thread that runs through this work. Throughout the book, the author gives clear translations of original material that allow the reader direct access to what the people in this book said about themselves and what they tried to do.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198733119
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 441
Book Description
This book is a history of the development of mathematical astronomy in China, from the late third century BCE, to the early 3rd century CE - a period often referred to as 'early imperial China'. It narrates the changes in ways of understanding the movements of the heavens and the heavenly bodies that took place during those four and a half centuries, and tells the stories of the institutions and individuals involved in those changes. It gives clear explanations of technical practice in observation, instrumentation, and calculation, and the steady accumulation of data over many years - but it centres on the activity of the individual human beings who observed the heavens, recorded what they saw, and made calculations to analyse and eventually make predictions about the motions of the celestial bodies. It is these individuals, their observations, their calculations, and the words they left to us that provide the narrative thread that runs through this work. Throughout the book, the author gives clear translations of original material that allow the reader direct access to what the people in this book said about themselves and what they tried to do.
Daily Life in Ancient China
Author: Muzhou Pu
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107021170
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
This book employs textual and archaeological material to reconstruct the various features of daily life in ancient China.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107021170
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
This book employs textual and archaeological material to reconstruct the various features of daily life in ancient China.
Sharing the Light
Author: Lisa Ann Raphals
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791438558
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 378
Book Description
Explores historical and philosophical shifts in the depiction of women and virtue in the early years of the Chinese state. Includes an examination of the history of yin-yang theories.
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791438558
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 378
Book Description
Explores historical and philosophical shifts in the depiction of women and virtue in the early years of the Chinese state. Includes an examination of the history of yin-yang theories.
Imperial Politics and Symbolics in Ancient Japan
Author: Herman Ooms
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824832353
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382
Book Description
Imperial Politics and Symbolics in Ancient Japan is an ambitious and ground-breaking study that offers a new understanding of a formative stage in the development of the Japanese state. The late seventh and eighth centuries were a time of momentous change in Japan, much of it brought about by the short-lived Tenmu dynasty. Two new capital cities, a bureaucratic state led by an imperial ruler, and Chinese-style law codes were just a few of the innovations instituted by the new regime. Herman Ooms presents both a wide-ranging and fine-grained examination of the power struggles, symbolic manipulations, new mythological constructs, and historical revisions that both defined and propelled these changes. In addition to a vast amount of research in Japanese sources, the author draws on a wealth of sinological scholarship in English, German, and French to illuminate the politics and symbolics of the time. An important feature of the book is the way it opens up early Japanese history to considerations of continental influences. Rulers and ritual specialists drew on several religious and ritual idioms, including Daoism, Buddhism, yin-yang hermeneutics, and kami worship, to articulate and justify their innovations. In looking at the religious symbols that were deployed in support of the state, Ooms gives special attention to the Daoist dimensions of the new political symbolics as well as to the crucial contributions made by successive generations of "immigrants" from the Korean peninsula. From the beginning, a "liturgical state" sought to co-opt factions and clans (uji) as participants in the new polity with the emperor acting as both a symbolic mediator and a silent partner. In contrast to the traditional interpretation of the Kojiki mythology as providing a vertical legitimation of a Sun lineage of rulers, an argument is presented for the importance of a lateral dimension of interdependency as a key structural element in the mythological narrative. An enlightening line of interpretation woven into the author’s analysis centers on purity. This eminently politico-ritual value central to Chinese Daoism and Buddhism was used by Tenmu as the emblematic expression of his regime and new political power. The concept of purity was most fully realized in the world of the Saiô princess in Ise and was later used by Ise ritualists to defend themselves against Buddhist rivals. At the end of the Tenmu dynasty, it was widely believed that avenging spirits were the principal source of danger and pollution, notions understood here as statements about the bloody political battles that were waged in Tenmu court circles. The Tenmu dynasty began and ended in bloodshed and was marked throughout by instability and upheaval. Constant succession struggles between two branches of the royal line and a few outside lineages generated a host of plots, uprisings, murders, and accusations of black magic. This aspect of the period gets full treatment in fascinatingly detailed narratives, which the author skillfully alternates with his trademark structural analysis. Imperial Politics and Symbolics in Ancient Japan is a boldly imaginative, carefully and extensively researched, and richly textured history that will reward reading by Japan specialists and students in several disciplines as well as by scholars with an interest in the role of religious symbolism in state formation.
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824832353
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382
Book Description
Imperial Politics and Symbolics in Ancient Japan is an ambitious and ground-breaking study that offers a new understanding of a formative stage in the development of the Japanese state. The late seventh and eighth centuries were a time of momentous change in Japan, much of it brought about by the short-lived Tenmu dynasty. Two new capital cities, a bureaucratic state led by an imperial ruler, and Chinese-style law codes were just a few of the innovations instituted by the new regime. Herman Ooms presents both a wide-ranging and fine-grained examination of the power struggles, symbolic manipulations, new mythological constructs, and historical revisions that both defined and propelled these changes. In addition to a vast amount of research in Japanese sources, the author draws on a wealth of sinological scholarship in English, German, and French to illuminate the politics and symbolics of the time. An important feature of the book is the way it opens up early Japanese history to considerations of continental influences. Rulers and ritual specialists drew on several religious and ritual idioms, including Daoism, Buddhism, yin-yang hermeneutics, and kami worship, to articulate and justify their innovations. In looking at the religious symbols that were deployed in support of the state, Ooms gives special attention to the Daoist dimensions of the new political symbolics as well as to the crucial contributions made by successive generations of "immigrants" from the Korean peninsula. From the beginning, a "liturgical state" sought to co-opt factions and clans (uji) as participants in the new polity with the emperor acting as both a symbolic mediator and a silent partner. In contrast to the traditional interpretation of the Kojiki mythology as providing a vertical legitimation of a Sun lineage of rulers, an argument is presented for the importance of a lateral dimension of interdependency as a key structural element in the mythological narrative. An enlightening line of interpretation woven into the author’s analysis centers on purity. This eminently politico-ritual value central to Chinese Daoism and Buddhism was used by Tenmu as the emblematic expression of his regime and new political power. The concept of purity was most fully realized in the world of the Saiô princess in Ise and was later used by Ise ritualists to defend themselves against Buddhist rivals. At the end of the Tenmu dynasty, it was widely believed that avenging spirits were the principal source of danger and pollution, notions understood here as statements about the bloody political battles that were waged in Tenmu court circles. The Tenmu dynasty began and ended in bloodshed and was marked throughout by instability and upheaval. Constant succession struggles between two branches of the royal line and a few outside lineages generated a host of plots, uprisings, murders, and accusations of black magic. This aspect of the period gets full treatment in fascinatingly detailed narratives, which the author skillfully alternates with his trademark structural analysis. Imperial Politics and Symbolics in Ancient Japan is a boldly imaginative, carefully and extensively researched, and richly textured history that will reward reading by Japan specialists and students in several disciplines as well as by scholars with an interest in the role of religious symbolism in state formation.
Empires of Ancient Eurasia
Author: Craig Benjamin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107114969
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 317
Book Description
Introduces a crucial period of world history when the vast exchange network of the Silk Roads connected most of Eurasia.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107114969
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 317
Book Description
Introduces a crucial period of world history when the vast exchange network of the Silk Roads connected most of Eurasia.
The Tale of Cho Ung
Author:
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231546491
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 235
Book Description
The Tale of Cho Ung is one of the most widely read and beloved stories of Chosŏn Korea. The anonymously written tale recounts the adventures of protagonist Cho Ung as he fearlessly confronts and overcomes obstacles and grows into a heroic young man. As a child, Ung flees a wicked tyrant who wrongfully killed his father and took advantage of the emperor’s death to seize the throne from the young prince. Driven by his passion, righteousness, and sense of duty, he pursues retribution and restores justice. His journey, from its innocent beginnings to his final triumph, unfolds as a complex tapestry of loyalty, honor, retribution, and love interspersed with threads of romance and the supernatural. This first translation into English of The Tale of Cho Ung offers a glimpse into the vernacular and popular literature of the late Chosŏn period, exemplifying the types of stories and heroes that were favored by its reading public. The tale emphasizes individual affections and ethics between child and parent, husband and wife, subject and ruler, pupil and teacher, yet explores human life in all its complexity, even subtly dissenting against traditional Korean social norms. This unabridged translation draws upon the many surviving editions of the novel, which vary in length and format. In her introduction, Sookja Cho addresses how the novel evolved and changed over time, while her annotations help to reveal the depths of a text that conveys the richness and complexity of premodern Korean literature and culture.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231546491
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 235
Book Description
The Tale of Cho Ung is one of the most widely read and beloved stories of Chosŏn Korea. The anonymously written tale recounts the adventures of protagonist Cho Ung as he fearlessly confronts and overcomes obstacles and grows into a heroic young man. As a child, Ung flees a wicked tyrant who wrongfully killed his father and took advantage of the emperor’s death to seize the throne from the young prince. Driven by his passion, righteousness, and sense of duty, he pursues retribution and restores justice. His journey, from its innocent beginnings to his final triumph, unfolds as a complex tapestry of loyalty, honor, retribution, and love interspersed with threads of romance and the supernatural. This first translation into English of The Tale of Cho Ung offers a glimpse into the vernacular and popular literature of the late Chosŏn period, exemplifying the types of stories and heroes that were favored by its reading public. The tale emphasizes individual affections and ethics between child and parent, husband and wife, subject and ruler, pupil and teacher, yet explores human life in all its complexity, even subtly dissenting against traditional Korean social norms. This unabridged translation draws upon the many surviving editions of the novel, which vary in length and format. In her introduction, Sookja Cho addresses how the novel evolved and changed over time, while her annotations help to reveal the depths of a text that conveys the richness and complexity of premodern Korean literature and culture.
China's Early Empires
Author: Michael Nylan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521852978
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 671
Book Description
Shows how recent archaeological discoveries have enriched our perception of the cultural history of China in the Classical era.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521852978
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 671
Book Description
Shows how recent archaeological discoveries have enriched our perception of the cultural history of China in the Classical era.
Ghosts and Religious Life in Early China
Author: Mu-Chou Poo
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316514676
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 215
Book Description
What did ghosts look like, what did they do, and what can they tell us about Chinese culture and society?
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316514676
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 215
Book Description
What did ghosts look like, what did they do, and what can they tell us about Chinese culture and society?
The Astronomy Revolution
Author: Donald G. York
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1439836019
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 438
Book Description
Some 400 years after the first known patent application for a telescope by Hans Lipperhey, The Astronomy Revolution: 400 Years of Exploring the Cosmos surveys the effects of this instrument and explores the questions that have arisen out of scientific research in astronomy and cosmology. Inspired by the international New Vision 400 conference held
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1439836019
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 438
Book Description
Some 400 years after the first known patent application for a telescope by Hans Lipperhey, The Astronomy Revolution: 400 Years of Exploring the Cosmos surveys the effects of this instrument and explores the questions that have arisen out of scientific research in astronomy and cosmology. Inspired by the international New Vision 400 conference held