Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China

Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China PDF Author: Cynthia J. Brokaw
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520927796
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 559

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Book Description
Despite the importance of books and the written word in Chinese society, the history of the book in China is a topic that has been little explored. This pioneering volume of essays, written by historians, art historians, and literary scholars, introduces the major issues in the social and cultural history of the book in late imperial China. Informed by many insights from the rich literature on the history of the Western book, these essays investigate the relationship between the manuscript and print culture; the emergence of urban and rural publishing centers; the expanding audience for books; the development of niche markets and specialized publishing of fiction, drama, non-Han texts, and genealogies; and more.

Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China

Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China PDF Author: Cynthia J. Brokaw
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520927796
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 559

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Book Description
Despite the importance of books and the written word in Chinese society, the history of the book in China is a topic that has been little explored. This pioneering volume of essays, written by historians, art historians, and literary scholars, introduces the major issues in the social and cultural history of the book in late imperial China. Informed by many insights from the rich literature on the history of the Western book, these essays investigate the relationship between the manuscript and print culture; the emergence of urban and rural publishing centers; the expanding audience for books; the development of niche markets and specialized publishing of fiction, drama, non-Han texts, and genealogies; and more.

Popular Culture in Late Imperial China

Popular Culture in Late Imperial China PDF Author: David Johnson
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520340124
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985.

A Social History of the Chinese Book

A Social History of the Chinese Book PDF Author: Joseph P. McDermott
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
ISBN: 9622097812
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
In this learned, yet readable, book, Joseph McDermott introduces the history of the book in China in the late imperial period from 1000 to 1800. He assumes little knowledge of Chinese history or culture and compares the Chinese experience with books with that of other civilizations, particularly the European. Yet he deals with a wide range of issues in the history of the book in China and presents novel analyses of the changes in Chinese woodblock bookmaking over these centuries. He presents a new view of when the printed book replaced the manuscript and what drove that substitution. He explores the distribution and marketing structure of books, and writes fascinatingly on the history of book collecting and about access to private and government book collections. In drawing on a great deal of Chinese, Japanese, and Western research this book provides a broad account of the way Chinese books were printed, distributed, and consumed by literati and scholars, mainly in the lower Yangzi delta, the cultural center of China during these centuries. It introduces interesting personalities, ranging from wily book collectors to an indigent shoe-repairman collector. And, it discusses the obstacles to the formation of a truly national printed culture for both the well-educated and the struggling reader in recent times. This broad and comprehensive account of the development of printed Chinese culture from 1000 to 1800 is written for anyone interested in the history of the book. It also offers important new insights into book culture and its place in society for the student of Chinese history and culture. 'A brilliant piece of synthetic research as well as a delightful read, it offers a history of the Chinese book to the eighteenth century that is without equal.' - Timothy Brook, University of British Columbia 'Writers, scribes, engravers, printers, binders, publishers, distributors, dealers, literati, scholars, librarians, collectors, voracious readers — the full gamut of a vibrant book culture in China over one thousand years — are examined with eloquence and perception by Joseph McDermott in The Social History of the Book. His lively exploration will be of consuming interest to bibliophiles of every persuasion.' - Nicholas A. Basbanes, author of A Gentle Madness, Patience and Fortitude, A Splendor of Letters, and Every Book Its Reader Joseph McDermott is presently Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, and University Lecturer in Chinese at Cambridge University. He has published widely on Chinese social and economic history, most recently on the economy of the Song (or, Sung) dynasty for the Cambridge History of China. He has edited State and Court Ritual in China and Art and Power in East Asia.

The Peking Gazette in Late Imperial China

The Peking Gazette in Late Imperial China PDF Author: Emily Mokros
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 029574880X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
In the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), China experienced far greater access to political information than suggested by the blunt measures of control and censorship employed by modern Chinese regimes. A tenuous partnership between the court and the dynamic commercial publishing enterprises of late imperial China enabled the publication of gazettes in a wide range of print and manuscript formats. For both domestic and foreign readers these official gazettes offered vital information about the Qing state and its activities, transmitting state news across a vast empire and beyond. And the most essential window onto Qing politics was the Peking Gazette, a genre that circulated globally over the course of the dynasty. This illuminating study presents a comprehensive history of the Peking Gazette and frames it as the cornerstone of a Qing information policy that, paradoxically, prized both transparency and secrecy. Gazettes gave readers a glimpse into the state’s inner workings but also served as a carefully curated form of public relations. Historian Emily Mokros draws from international archives to reconstruct who read the gazette and how they used it to guide their interactions with the Chinese state. Her research into the Peking Gazette’s evolution over more than two centuries is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the relationship between media, information, and state power.

Publishing, Culture, and Power in Early Modern China

Publishing, Culture, and Power in Early Modern China PDF Author: Kai-wing Chow
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804733686
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
This path-breaking book argues that printing—both with woodblocks and with movable type—exerted a profound influence on Chinese society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The Book Worlds of East Asia and Europe, 1450–1850

The Book Worlds of East Asia and Europe, 1450–1850 PDF Author: Joseph P. McDermott
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
ISBN: 988820808X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
This volume provides the first comparative survey of the relations between the two most active book worlds in Eurasia between 1450 and 1850. Prominent scholars in book history explore different approaches to publishing, printing, and book culture. They discuss the extent of technology transfer and book distribution between the two regions and show how much book historians of East Asia and Europe can learn from one another by raising new questions, exploring remarkable similarities and differences in these regions’ production, distribution, and consumption of books. The chapters in turn show different ways of writing transnational comparative history. Whereas recent problems confronting research on European books can instruct researchers on East Asian book production, so can the privileged role of noncommercial publications in the East Asian textual record highlight for historians of the European book the singular contribution of commercial printing and market demands to the making of the European printed record. Likewise, although production growth was accompanied in both regions by a wider distribution of books, woodblock technology’s simplicity and mobility allowed for a shift in China of its production and distribution sites farther down the hierarchy of urban sites than was common in Europe. And, the different demands and consumption practices within these two regions’ expanding markets led to different genre preferences and uses as well as to the growth of distinctive female readerships. A substantial introduction pulls the work together and the volume ends with an essay that considers how these historical developments shape the present book worlds of Eurasia. “This splendid volume offers expert new insight into the ways of producing, financing, distributing, and reading printed books in early modern Europe and East Asia. This is comparative history at its best, which leaves us with a better understanding of each context and of the challenges common to book cultures across space and time.” —Ann Blair, author of Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age and professor of history, Harvard University “This engrossing account of the history of the book by leading specialists on the European and East Asian publishing worlds takes stock of what we know—and how much we still need to know—about the places that books had in the lives of our early modern forebears. Each chapter is masterful state-of-the-field coverage of its subject, and together they set a new standard for future studies of the book, East and West.” —Timothy Brook, author of The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties

Scholars and Their Marginalia in Late Imperial China

Scholars and Their Marginalia in Late Imperial China PDF Author: Yinzong Wei
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004508473
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
The first book on the “marginalia culture” of late Imperial China, this study introduces the features of marginalia, examines scholars’ reading practices and scholarly style centred on marginalia and explores how this “marginalia culture” shaped Chinese texts and scholars’ thought.

True to Her Word

True to Her Word PDF Author: Weijing Lu
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804758086
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
This book is a comprehensive study of faithful maidenhood in late imperial China from the vantage points of state policy, local history, scholarly debate, and the faithful maiden’s own subjective point of view.

Medicine and Society in Late Imperial China

Medicine and Society in Late Imperial China PDF Author: Yüan-ling Chao
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9781433103810
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Medicine and Society in Late Imperial China explores the vibrant medical landscape in late imperial China (1600-1850), focusing on one of the most cultured and elegant cities in the lower Yangzi region, Suzhou. The central theme of the book is that the economic prosperity and intellectual vibrancy of late imperial Jiangnan fostered the emergence of a community of physicians who engaged in lively debates concerning qualifications and practice, leading to a growing sense of identity and new ways of theorizing and practicing medicine. It shows that the classical medical tradition interacted in a fluid relationship with both the state and the folk traditions. Medicine and Society in Late Imperial China is divided into two parts. Part I provides a broad framework on the discourse on the ideal physician, as well as examining the sanhuang miao (Temple of the Three Emperors) and challenges to existing medical theories by the wenbing (warm factor) school. Part II focuses on Suzhou physicians and their writings within the broad medical tradition, illustrates a local perspective of medicine's relationship with the state through an examination of the outbreak of epidemics in Suzhou, and discusses the development of the fields of specialties in medicine.

Rulin waishi and Cultural Transformation in Late Imperial China

Rulin waishi and Cultural Transformation in Late Imperial China PDF Author: Shang Wei
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684170435
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
Rulin waishi (The Unofficial History of the Scholars) is more than a landmark in the history of the Chinese novel. This eighteenth-century work, which was deeply embedded in the intellectual and literary discourses of its time, challenges the reader to come to grips with the mid-Qing debates over ritual and ritualism, and the construction of history, narrative, and lyricism. Wu Jingzi’s (1701–54) ironic portrait of literati life was unprecedented in its comprehensive treatment of the degeneration of mores, the predicaments of official institutions, and the Confucian elite’s futile struggle to reassert moral and cultural authority. Like many of his fellow literati, Wu found the vernacular novel an expressive and malleable medium for discussing elite concerns. Through a close reading of Rulin waishi, Shang Wei seeks to answer such questions as What accounts for the literati’s enthusiasm for writing and reading novels? Does this enthusiasm bespeak a conscious effort to develop a community of critical discourse outside the official world? Why did literati authors eschew publication? What are the bases for their social and cultural criticisms? How far do their criticisms go, given the authors’ alleged Confucianism? And if literati authors were interested solely in recovering moral and cultural hegemony for their class, how can we explain the irony found in their works?