The Eunuch's Heir

The Eunuch's Heir PDF Author: Elaine Isaak
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061741760
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
Wild prince of the realm Wolfram duRhys spends his days carousing and wenching—anything to avoid the legacy of his revered father, Kattanan duRhys, who saved the kingdom and created a legend impossible to match. But when his carefree existence is shattered by an assassination attempt, he discovers that he's been living a lie and a dark destiny awaits. Fleeing to a distant land of magic and mystery, he finds the love of a cloistered virgin, the ire of a priestess with a plan for bloody revenge, and a cult that would claim all those he holds dear. But a much darker threat looms that will either save his land or leave it in utter ruin. Sweeping magical adventure, political intrigue, and romance unite in this stunning follow-up to The Singer's Crown.

The Eunuch's Heir

The Eunuch's Heir PDF Author: Elaine Isaak
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061741760
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 466

Get Book Here

Book Description
Wild prince of the realm Wolfram duRhys spends his days carousing and wenching—anything to avoid the legacy of his revered father, Kattanan duRhys, who saved the kingdom and created a legend impossible to match. But when his carefree existence is shattered by an assassination attempt, he discovers that he's been living a lie and a dark destiny awaits. Fleeing to a distant land of magic and mystery, he finds the love of a cloistered virgin, the ire of a priestess with a plan for bloody revenge, and a cult that would claim all those he holds dear. But a much darker threat looms that will either save his land or leave it in utter ruin. Sweeping magical adventure, political intrigue, and romance unite in this stunning follow-up to The Singer's Crown.

Hidden Power

Hidden Power PDF Author: Mary M. Anderson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
A little-known yet significant role in Chinese history was played by the palace eunuchs--castrated men who developed a concealed subcaste that manipulated monarchs and caused the downfall of immense dynasties. This book vividly chronicles the history of the imperial eunuchs: from the murky origins of the practice to the Ming dynasty when 100,000 eunuchs were employed as agents of the Dragon Throne, to the 1912 uprising that swept away the monarchy and the age-old eunuch system forever.

The Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Harem

The Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Harem PDF Author: Jane Hathaway
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107108292
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
A study of the chief of the African eunuchs who guarded the sultan's harem in Istanbul under the Ottoman Empire.

Celibate and Childless Men in Power

Celibate and Childless Men in Power PDF Author: Almut Höfert
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317182375
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
This book explores a striking common feature of pre-modern ruling systems on a global scale: the participation of childless and celibate men as integral parts of the elites. In bringing court eunuchs and bishops together, this collection shows that the integration of men who were normatively or physically excluded from biological fatherhood offered pre-modern dynasties the potential to use different reproduction patterns. The shared focus on ruling eunuchs and bishops also reveals that these men had a specific position at the intersection of four fields: power, social dynamics, sacredness and gender/masculinities. The thirteen chapters present case studies on clerics in Medieval Europe and court eunuchs in the Middle East, Byzantium, India and China. They analyze how these men in their different frameworks acted as politicians, participated in social networks, provided religious authority, and discuss their masculinities. Taken together, this collection sheds light on the political arena before the modern nation-state excluded these unmarried men from the circles of political power.

Rediscovering Wen Tingyun

Rediscovering Wen Tingyun PDF Author: Huaichuan Mou
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791485838
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
In this book, Huaichuan Mou takes a fresh look at the life, times, and work of Wen Tingyun, the great poet of the late Tang dynasty in China, whose reputation has been overshadowed by notoriety and misunderstanding for more than a thousand years. In probing the political intricacies of the major events of Wen's life and the complex contexts in which these events took place, Mou presents a historical key to Wen's artistic labyrinth, unraveling many of Wen's poetic puzzles and rediscovering a historical past that vividly represents his unyielding pursuit of ideal government and true love. This reconstruction of the poet's life results in a new understanding not only of his literary work but also of late Tang history as well. Translations and close readings of a number of poems and prose essays are included.

The Perfect Servant

The Perfect Servant PDF Author: Kathryn M. Ringrose
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226720160
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
The Perfect Servant reevaluates the place of eunuchs in Byzantium. Kathryn Ringrose uses the modern concept of gender as a social construct to identify eunuchs as a distinct gender and to illustrate how gender was defined in the Byzantine world. At the same time she explores the changing role of the eunuch in Byzantium from 600 to 1100. Accepted for generations as a legitimate and functional part of Byzantine civilization, eunuchs were prominent in both the imperial court and the church. They were distinctive in physical appearance, dress, and manner and were considered uniquely suited for important roles in Byzantine life. Transcending conventional notions of male and female, eunuchs lived outside of normal patterns of procreation and inheritance and were assigned a unique capacity for mediating across social and spiritual boundaries. This allowed them to perform tasks from which prominent men and women were constrained, making them, in essence, perfect servants. Written with precision and meticulously researched, The Perfect Servant will immediately take its place as a major study on Byzantium and the history of gender.

Eunuch and Emperor in the Great Age of Qing Rule

Eunuch and Emperor in the Great Age of Qing Rule PDF Author: Norman A. Kutcher
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520969847
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Eunuch and Emperor in the Great Age of Qing Rule offers a new interpretation of eunuchs and their connection to imperial rule in the first century and a half of the Qing dynasty (1644–1800). This period encompassed the reigns of three of China’s most important emperors, men who were deeply affected by the great eunuch corruption of the fallen Ming dynasty. In this groundbreaking and deeply researched book, the author explores how Qing emperors sought to prevent a return of the harmful excesses of eunuchs and how eunuchs flourished in the face of the restrictions imposed upon them. We meet powerful eunuchs who faithfully served, and in some cases ultimately betrayed, their emperors. We also meet ordinary eunuchs whose lives, punctuated by dramas large and small, provide a fascinating perspective on the Qing palace world.

Inside the World of the Eunuch

Inside the World of the Eunuch PDF Author: Melissa S. Dale
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
ISBN: 9888455753
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
The history of Qing palace eunuchs is defined by a tension between the role eunuchs were meant to play and the life they intended to live. This study tells the story of how a complicated and much-maligned group of people struggled to insert a degree of agency into their lives. Rulers of the Qing dynasty were determined to ensure the eunuchs’ subservience and to limit their influence by imposing a management style based upon strict rules, corporal punishment, and collective responsibility. Few eunuchs wielded significant political power or lived in a lavish style during the Qing dynasty. Emasculation and employment in the palace placed eunuchs at the center of the empire, yet also subjected them to servile status and marginalization by society. Seeking more control over their lives, eunuchs serving the Qing repeatedly tested the boundaries of subservience to the emperor and the imperial court. This portrait of eunuch society reveals that Qing palace eunuchs operated within two parallel realms, one revolving around the emperor and the court by day and another among the eunuchs themselves by night where they recreated the social bonds—through drinking, gambling, and opium smoking—denied them by their palace service. Far from being the ideal servants, eunuchs proved to be a constant source of anxiety and labor challenges for the Qing court. For a long time eunuchs have simply been cast as villains in Chinese history. Inside the World of the Eunuch goes beyond this misleadingly one-dimensional depiction to show how eunuchs actually lived during the Qing dynasty. “This book is a thorough and responsible account of eunuch life during the Qing dynasty, which takes us deep inside the Forbidden City and introduces the often underclass families who provided servants to the Qing monarchs.” —R. Kent Guy, University of Washington “This is a unique study of Chinese eunuchs, in which Melissa Dale proves that they were a necessary and vital presence in the palace of the last dynasty in China. She explores all aspects of their life to the end of their existence, while avoiding the temptation to sensationalize them.” —Keith McMahon, University of Kansas

The Eunuch

The Eunuch PDF Author: Jonathan Kos-Read
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789888769209
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Getting an Heir

Getting an Heir PDF Author: Ann Waltner
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824879953
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
The need for heirs in any traditional society is a compelling one. In traditional China, where inheritance and notions of filiality depended on the production of progeny, the need was nearly absolute. As Ann Waltner makes clear in this broadly researched study of adoption in the late Ming and early Ch'ing periods, the getting of an heir was a complex, even paradoxical undertaking. Although adoption involving persons of the same surname was the only arrangement ritually and legally sanctioned in Chinese society, adoption of persons of a different surname was a relatively common practice. Using medical and ritual texts, legal codes, local gazetteers, biography, and fiction, Waltner examines the multiple dimensions of the practice of adoption and identifies not only the dominant ideology prohibiting adoption across surname lines, but also a parallel discourse justifying the practice.