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Author: John W. Dardess Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1442204907 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 173
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.
Author: John W. Dardess Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1442204907 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 173
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.
Author: Ying Zhang Publisher: BRILL ISBN: 9004432299 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 108
Book Description
Approaching the prison as a creative environment and imprisoned officials as creative subjects in Ming China (1368-1644), Ying Zhang introduces important themes at the intersection of premodern Chinese religion, poetry, and visual and material culture.
Author: Jun Fang Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1135008450 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 234
Book Description
This book is a study of the dual capital system of Ming dynasty China (1368-1644), with a focus on the administrative functions of the auxiliary Southern Capital, Nanjing. It argues that the immense geographical expanse of the Chinese empire and the poor communication infrastructure of pre-modern times necessitated the establishment of an additional capital administration for effective control of the Ming realm. The existence of the Southern Capital, which has been dismissed by scholars as redundant and insignificant, was, the author argues, justified by its ability to assist the primary Northern Capital better control the southern part of the imperial land. The practice of maintaining auxiliary capitals, where the bureaucratic structures of the primary capital were replicated in varying degrees, was a unique and valuable approach to effecting bureaucratic control over vast territory in pre-modern conditions. Nanjing translates into English as "Southern Capital" and Beijing as "Northern Capital".
Author: Francesca Bray Publisher: Shot Historical Perspectives o ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 108
Book Description
Historians of Chinese technology have tended to pay little attention to the Ming dynasty, characterizing it as a stagnantperiod unmarked by significant inventions of the kind that in Europe gave rise to the industrial revolution and the modern world. Yet the Ming was a period of extraordinary social, cultural, and economic vitality and change, and it would be curious if technology had played no part in these changes. This pamphlet approaches the material world of the Ming from a more anthropological perspective than has been conventional among historians of China, emphasizing the role of technologies in social order and identity.
Author: David M. Robinson Publisher: BRILL ISBN: 1684174740 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 475
Book Description
"This collection of essays reveals the Ming court as an arena of competition and negotiation, where a large cast of actors pursued individual and corporate ends, personal agency shaped protocol and style, and diverse people, goods, and tastes converged. Rather than observing an immutable set of traditions, court culture underwent frequent reinterpretation and rearticulation, processes driven by immediate personal imperatives, mediated through social, political, and cultural interaction.The essays address several common themes. First, they rethink previous notions of imperial isolation, instead stressing the court’s myriad ties both to local Beijing society and to the empire as a whole. Second, the court was far from monolithic or static. Palace women, monks, craftsmen, educators, moralists, warriors, eunuchs, foreign envoys, and others strove to advance their interests and forge advantageous relations with the emperor and one another. Finally, these case studies illustrate the importance of individual agency. The founder’s legacy may have formed the warp of court practices and tastes, but the weft varied considerably. Reflecting the complexity of the court, the essays represent a variety of perspectives and disciplines—from intellectual, cultural, military, and political to art history and musicology."
Author: Jiang Yonglin Publisher: University of Washington Press ISBN: 0295801662 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 262
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.
Author: Timothy Brook Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 052092407X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 348
Book Description
The Ming dynasty was the last great Chinese dynasty before the Manchu conquest in 1644. During that time, China, not Europe, was the center of the world: the European voyages of exploration were searching not just for new lands but also for new trade routes to the Far East. In this book, Timothy Brook eloquently narrates the changing landscape of life over the three centuries of the Ming (1368-1644), when China was transformed from a closely administered agrarian realm into a place of commercial profits and intense competition for status. The Confusions of Pleasure marks a significant departure from the conventional ways in which Chinese history has been written. Rather than recounting the Ming dynasty in a series of political events and philosophical achievements, it narrates this longue durée in terms of the habits and strains of everyday life. Peppered with stories of real people and their negotiations of a rapidly changing world, this book provides a new way of seeing the Ming dynasty that not only contributes to the scholarly understanding of the period but also provides an entertaining and accessible introduction to Chinese history for anyone.
Author: Michael Szonyi Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000283267 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 215
Book Description
This book explores the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) military, its impact on local society, and its many legacies for Chinese society. It is based on extensive original research by scholars using the methodology of historical anthropology, an approach that has transformed the study of Chinese history by approaching the subject from the bottom up. Its nine chapters, each based on a different region of China, examine the nature of Ming military institutions and their interaction with local social life over time. Several chapters consider the distinctive role of imperial institutions in frontier areas and how they interacted with and affected non-Han ethnic groups and ethnic identity. Others discuss the long-term legacy of Ming military institutions, especially across the dynastic divide from Ming to Qing (1644-1912) and the implications of this for understanding more fully the nature of the Qing rule.
Author: Grant Guangren Shen Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 113429025X Category : Performing Arts Languages : en Pages : 216
Book Description
Theatre occupied a particularly important place in the life of the elite, for whom owning a theatre troupe was highly fashionable and for whom theatre performances were an integral part of formal gatherings, various rituals and ceremonies. Based on an exploration of original historical records, including comparisons with other forms of ancient theatre, Shen provides an overview of elite theatre in Ming China and examines the details of theatrical performance.
Author: John W. Dardess
Author: John W. Dardess
Author: Ying Zhang
Author: Jun Fang
Author: Francesca Bray
Author: David M. Robinson
Author: Jiang Yonglin
Author: Timothy Brook
Author: Charles O. Hucker
Author: Michael Szonyi
Author: Grant Guangren Shen