The Mandate of Heaven

The Mandate of Heaven PDF Author: S J Marshall
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317849299
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
The Mandate of Heaven was originally given to King Wen in the 11th century BC. King Wen is credited with founding the Zhou dynasty after he received the Mandate from Heaven to attack and overthrow the Shang dynasty. King Wen is also credited with creating the ancient oracle known as the Yijing or Book of Changes. This book validates King Wen's association with the Changes. It uncovers in the Changes a record of a total solar eclipse that was witnessed at King Wen's capital of Feng by his son King Wu, shortly after King Wen had died (before he had a chance to launch the full invasion). The sense of this eclipse as an actual event has been overlooked for three millennia. It provides an account of the events surrounding the conquest of the Shang and founding of the Zhou dynasty that has never been told. It shows how the earliest layer of the Book of Changes (the Zhouyi) has preserved a hidden history of the Conquest.

The Mandate of Heaven

The Mandate of Heaven PDF Author: S J Marshall
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317849299
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
The Mandate of Heaven was originally given to King Wen in the 11th century BC. King Wen is credited with founding the Zhou dynasty after he received the Mandate from Heaven to attack and overthrow the Shang dynasty. King Wen is also credited with creating the ancient oracle known as the Yijing or Book of Changes. This book validates King Wen's association with the Changes. It uncovers in the Changes a record of a total solar eclipse that was witnessed at King Wen's capital of Feng by his son King Wu, shortly after King Wen had died (before he had a chance to launch the full invasion). The sense of this eclipse as an actual event has been overlooked for three millennia. It provides an account of the events surrounding the conquest of the Shang and founding of the Zhou dynasty that has never been told. It shows how the earliest layer of the Book of Changes (the Zhouyi) has preserved a hidden history of the Conquest.

Mandate of Heaven

Mandate of Heaven PDF Author: Orville Schell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684804476
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
America's foremost chronicler of contemporary China brilliantly illuminates the new power structure, economic initiatives, and cultural changes that have transformed China since the Tianamen Square massacre of 1989. "A rich portrait, capturing a fascinating and perhaps fateful moment in China's long, turbulent history".--Arnold R. Isaacs, San Francisco Chronicle.

The Mandate of Heaven and The Great Ming Code

The Mandate of Heaven and The Great Ming Code PDF Author: Jiang Yonglin
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295801662
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
After overthrowing the Mongol Yuan dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), proclaimed that he had obtained the Mandate of Heaven (Tianming), enabling establishment of a spiritual orientation and social agenda for China. Zhu, emperor during the Ming’s Hongwu reign period, launched a series of social programs to rebuild the empire and define Chinese cultural identity. To promote its reform programs, the Ming imperial court issued a series of legal documents, culminating in The Great Ming Code (Da Ming lu), which supported China’s legal system until the Ming was overthrown and also served as the basis of the legal code of the following dynasty, the Qing (1644-1911). This companion volume to Jiang Yonglin’s translation of The Great Ming Code (2005) analyzes the thought underlying the imperial legal code. Was the concept of the Mandate of Heaven merely a tool manipulated by the ruling elite to justify state power, or was it essential to their belief system and to the intellectual foundation of legal culture? What role did law play in the imperial effort to carry out the social reform programs? Jiang addresses these questions by examining the transformative role of the Code in educating the people about the Mandate of Heaven. The Code served as a cosmic instrument and moral textbook to ensure “all under Heaven” were aligned with the cosmic order. By promoting, regulating, and prohibiting categories of ritual behavior, the intent of the Code was to provide spiritual guidance to Chinese subjects, as well as to acquire political legitimacy. The Code also obligated officials to obey the supreme authority of the emperor, to observe filial behavior toward parents, to care for the welfare of the masses, and to maintain harmonious relationships with deities. This set of regulations made officials the representatives of the Son of Heaven in mediating between the spiritual and mundane worlds and in governing the human realm. This study challenges the conventional assumption that law in premodern China was used merely as an arm of the state to maintain social control and as a secular tool to exercise naked power. Based on a holistic approach, Jiang argues that the Ming ruling elite envisioned the cosmos as an integrated unit; they saw law, religion, and political power as intertwined, remarkably different from the “modern” compartmentalized worldview. In serving as a cosmic instrument to manifest the Mandate of Heaven, The Great Ming Code represented a powerful religious effort to educate the masses and transform society.

Challenging the Mandate of Heaven

Challenging the Mandate of Heaven PDF Author: Elizabeth J. Perry
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317475135
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
Social science theories of contentious politics have been based almost exclusively on evidence drawn from the European and American experience, and classic texts in the field make no mention of either the Chinese Communist revolution or the Cultural Revolution -- surely two of the most momentous social movements of the twentieth century. Moreover, China's record of popular upheaval stretches back well beyond this century, indeed all the way back to the third century B.C. This book, by bringing together studies of protest that span the imperial, Republican, and Communist eras, introduces Chinese patterns and provides a forum to consider ways in which contentious politics in China might serve to reinforce, refine or reshape theories derived from Western cases.

The Mandate of Heaven

The Mandate of Heaven PDF Author: Nigel Harris
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1608465101
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
For radicals in Europe and North America, the anti-imperialist—and Chinese—revolutions continued the great task of 1789, 1848, and 1870, the “bourgeois revolution” in Marx’s terms, and the creation of nations that would release the energies and unity of purpose to create new worlds of prosperity and freedom. The nationalist focus led to an emphasis on autarkic development—the nation, it was said, already possessed within its own boundaries all the requirements and resources to match the accomplishments of global civilization. The overthrow of empire in the 1950s and 1960s—of which the coming to power of the Chinese Communist party in 1949 was a important part—seemed to augur a new era in world history, one in which the majority of the world’s population secured liberation. There was perhaps a sense in which this was true, but the reality for the majority was far removed from this giddy hope. And in the case of the ordinary Chinese, the newly “liberated” regime proved far more brutal and exacting than those that it had replaced (which also attained high standards of brutality and injustice). In China the great famine of 1958–62 was only the most spectacularly cruel and gratuitous product of that new order. For the former inhabitants of the old empires, national liberation turned out to be not liberation of all, but the creation of a new national ruling class, as often as not exploiting its position at home to make fortunes then smuggled abroad.

Treason By The Book

Treason By The Book PDF Author: Jonathan Spence
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241959144
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
In 1728 a stranger handed a letter to Governor Yue calling on him to lead a rebellion against the Manchu rulers of China. Feigning agreement, he learnt the details of the plot and immediately informed the Emperor, Yongzheng. The ringleaders were captured with ease, forced to recant and, to the confusion and outrage of the public, spared. Drawing on an enormous wealth of documentary evidence - over a hundred and fifty secret documents between the Emperor and his agents are stored in Chinese archives - Jonathan Spence has recreated this revolt of the scholars in fascinating and chilling detail. It is a story of unwordly dreams of a better world and the facts of bureaucratic power, of the mind of an Emperor and of the uses of his mercy.

The Great Ming Code / Da Ming lu

The Great Ming Code / Da Ming lu PDF Author:
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295804009
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
Imperial China’s dynastic legal codes provide a wealth of information for historians, social scientists, and scholars of comparative law and of literary, cultural, and legal history. Until now, only the Tang (618–907 C.E.) and Qing (1644–1911 C.E.) codes have been available in English translation. The present book is the first English translation of The Great Ming Code (Da Ming lu), which reached its final form in 1397. The translation is preceded by an introductory essay that places the Code in historical context, explores its codification process, and examines its structure and contents. A glossary of Chinese terms is also provided. One of the most important law codes in Chinese history, The Great Ming Code represents a break with the past, following the alien-ruled Yuan (Mongol) dynasty, and the flourishing of culture under the Ming, the last great Han-ruled dynasty. It was also a model for the Qing code, which followed it, and is a fundamental source for understanding Chinese society and culture. The Code regulated all the perceived major aspects of social affairs, aiming at the harmony of political, economic, military, familial, ritual, international, and legal relations in the empire and cosmic relations in the universe. The all-encompassing nature of the Code makes it an encyclopedic document, providing rich materials on Ming history. Because of the pervasiveness of legal proceedings in the culture generally, the Code has relevance far beyond the specialized realm of Chinese legal studies. The basic value system and social norms that the Code imposed became so thoroughly ingrained in Chinese society that the Manchus, who conquered China and established the Qing dynasty, chose to continue the Code in force with only minor changes. The Code made a considerable impact on the legal cultures of other East Asian countries: Yi dynasty Korea, Le dynasty Vietnam, and late Tokugawa and early Meiji Japan. Examining why and how some rules in the Code were adopted and others rejected in these countries will certainly enhance our understanding of the shared culture and indigenous identities in East Asia.

The Lost Mandate of Heaven

The Lost Mandate of Heaven PDF Author: Geoffrey D. T. Shaw
Publisher: Ignatius Press
ISBN: 1681496860
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Ngo Dinh Diem, the first president of the Republic of Vietnam, possessed the Confucian "Mandate of Heaven", a moral and political authority that was widely recognized by all Vietnamese. This devout Roman Catholic leader never lost this mandate in the eyes of his people; rather, he was taken down by a military coup sponsored by the U.S. government, which resulted in his brutal murder. The commonly held view runs contrary to the above assertion by military historian Geoffrey Shaw. According to many American historians, President Diem was a corrupt leader whose tyrannical actions lost him the loyalty of his people and the possibility of a military victory over the North Vietnamese. The Kennedy Administration, they argue, had to withdraw its support of Diem. Based on his research of original sources, including declassified documents of the U.S. government, Shaw chronicles the Kennedy administration's betrayal of this ally, which proved to be not only a moral failure but also a political disaster that led America into a protracted and costly war. Along the way, Shaw reveals a President Diem very different from the despot portrayed by the press during its coverage of Vietnam. From eyewitness accounts of military, intelligence, and diplomatic sources, Shaw draws the portrait of a man with rare integrity, a patriot who strove to free his country from Western colonialism while protecting it from Communism. "A candid account of the killing of Ngo Dinh Diem, the reasons for it, who was responsible, why it happened, and the disastrous results. Particularly agonizing for Americans who read this clearly stated and tightly argued book is the fact that the final Vietnam defeat was not really on battle grounds, but on political and moral grounds. The Vietnam War need not have been lost. Overwhelming evidence supports it." - From the Foreword by James V. Schall, S.J., Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University "Did I find a veritable Conradian 'Heart of Darkness'? Yes, I did, but it was not in the quarter to which all popular American sources were pointing their accusatory fingers; in other words, not in Saigon but, paradoxically, within the Department of State back in Washington, D.C., and within President Kennedy's closest White House advisory circle. The actions of these men led to Diem's murder. And with his death, nine and a half years of careful work and partnership between the United States and South Vietnam was undone." - Geoffrey Shaw, from the Preface

Challenging Beijing's Mandate of Heaven

Challenging Beijing's Mandate of Heaven PDF Author: Ming-sho Ho
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 1439917078
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
In 2014, the Sunflower Movement in Taiwan grabbed international attention as citizen protesters demanded the Taiwan government withdraw its free-trade agreement with China. In that same year, in Hong Kong, the Umbrella Movement sustained 79 days of demonstrations, protests that demanded genuine universal suffrage in electing Hong Kong’s chief executive. It too, became an international incident before it collapsed. Both of these student-led movements featured large-scale and intense participation and had deep and far-reaching consequences. But how did two massive and disruptive protests take place in culturally conservative societies? And how did the two “occupy”-style protests against Chinese influences on local politics arrive at such strikingly divergent results? Challenging Beijing’s Mandate of Heaven aims to make sense of the origins, processes, and outcomes of these eventful protests in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Ming-sho Ho compares the dynamics of the two movements, from the existing networks of activists that preceded protest, to the perceived threats that ignited the movements, to the government strategies with which they contended, and to the nature of their coordination. Moreover, he contextualizes these protests in a period of global prominence for student, occupy, and anti-globalization protests and situates them within social movement studies.

The Mandate of Heaven

The Mandate of Heaven PDF Author: Rob Flanigan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780965331661
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Russian meddling in U.S. elections is nothing compared to what the Chinese are planning for 2032. Such is the backdrop of a new satirical work, called "The Mandate of Heaven," in which the Chinese government strikes at America's Achilles' heel. The result is a rollicking story, both serious and silly, that unfolds like a blending of Fahrenheit 451, Mary Poppins, and 30 Rock . . . in other words, a portrayal of America's New Normal.Join Bert Alfred, an unknown American author, as he is silenced and robbed of his works by an official of the Chinese government. Unbeknownst to him, however, the strength of his ideas has won him a Chinese ally and given him a chance to reclaim what is rightfully his. . . . But will he, when the future of a brighter generation is at stake?Enjoy Bert, as he interferes in the lives of two Chinese children and disrupts America's political order, in this East versus West farce.The Mandate of Heaven is an ancient Chinese belief that a government's authority is divinely granted and that this authority lasts only for as long as the leadership rules with virtue. Thus, when the ruling classes become greedy, corrupt, and immoral, it is the right of the people . . . or Mother Nature . . . to rise up and remove them from power, thus proving they've lost the Mandate of Heaven."Capitol Hill is a farm league for K Street." --U.S. Representative Jim Cooper, as quoted in "Republic, Lost," by Lawrence LessigIn the future, Washington's K Street acquires an annex, called K Street South, located in Central Florida. Here, a sovereign sanctuary develops (free of the ubiquitous surveillance equipment that has made clandestine meetings so difficult to hide), where lobbyists can broker allegiances between politicians and their wealthy donors in the privacy and luxury they feel they deserve. So brazen is their disregard for anything but power and the almighty dollar that it doesn't even matter to them that this K Street South is the creation of the Chinese Communist Party.