This is the first volume of a two-volume set on the names of China, focusing on the country's official titles throughout history. Using interdisciplinary approaches from fields such as history, geography, ethnic studies, linguistics, psychology and toponymy, this two-volume set examines the origin and evolution of China's names over more than 4,000 years of history. The first volume examines the official names of the country given by the rulers or government, including the names of the imperial dynasties, from the earliest Xia to the last Qing, and the title of the Republic of China, which symbolises a new era in national naming. The author examines the common features as well as the cultural contexts and historical traditions that underlie these diverse titles. The origins and meanings of national titles, their secondary connotations, evolving understandings and related implications are explored. The book also analyses the lifespan and spatial references of these national titles. This book will appeal to both academic and general readers interested in Chinese history, Chinese historical geography and Chinese toponymy.

This is the second volume of a two-volume set on the names of China, focusing on the domestic and foreign names of the country in ancient and modern times. Using interdisciplinary approaches from fields such as history, geography, ethnic studies, linguistics, psychology and toponymy, this two-volume set examines the origin and evolution of China's names over more than 4,000 years of history. The second volume is divided into two parts. The first part explains the habitual self-names for China, which remain unaffected by political regime changes. The author explores the complex reasons for the emergence and evolution of indigenous names such as Zhongguo, Zhonghua, Jiuzhou and Sihai. The second part discusses the names of China in foreign languages. It looks at the origin, development, use and popularity of foreign names of China such as China, Serice, Taugas, Cathay and those associated with Han, Tang, the dragon and the lion. This book will appeal to both academic and general readers interested in Chinese history, Chinese historical geography and Chinese toponymy.

This unique book brings a fresh interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of ancient Chinese history, creating a historical model for the emergence of cultural mainstays by applying recent dramatic findings in the fields of neuroscience and cultural evolution. The centrality in Chinese culture of a deep reverence for the lives of preceding generations, filial piety, is conventionally attributed to Confucius (551-479 B.C.), who viewed hierarchical family relations as foundational for social order. Here, Porter argues that Confucian conceptions of filiality themselves evolved from a systemized set of behaviors and thoughts, a mental structure, which descended from a specific Neolithic mindset, and that this psychological structure was contoured by particular emotional conditions experienced by China’s earliest farmers. Using case study analysis from Neolithic sky observers to the dynastic cultures of the Shang and Western Zhou, the book shows how filial piety evolved as a structure of feeling, a legacy of a cultural predisposition toward particular moods and emotions that were inherited from the ancestral past. Porter also brings new urgency to the topic of ecological grief, linking the distress central to the evolution of the filial structure to its catalyst in an environmental crisis. With a blended multidisciplinary approach combining social neuroscience, cultural evolution, cognitive archaeology, and historical analysis, this book is ideal for students and researchers in neuropsychology, religion, and Chinese culture and history.

During the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the province emerged as an important element in the management of the expanding Chinese empire, with governors -- those in charge of these increasingly influential administrative units -- playing key roles. R. Kent Guy’s comprehensive study of this shift concentrates on the governorship system during the reigns of the Shunzhi, Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong emperors, who ruled China from 1644 to 1796. In the preceding Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the responsibilities of provincial officials were ill-defined and often shifting; Qing governors, in contrast, were influential members of a formal administrative hierarchy and enjoyed the support of the central government, including access to resources. These increasingly powerful officials extended the court’s influence into even the most distant territories of the Qing empire. Both masters of the routine processes of administration and troubleshooters for the central government, Qing governors were economic and political administrators who played crucial roles in the management of a larger and more complex empire than the Chinese had ever known. Administrative concerns varied from region to region: Henan was dominated by the great Yellow River, which flowed through the province; the Shandong governor dealt with the exchange of goods, ideas, and officials along the Grand Canal; in Zhili, relations between civilians and bannermen in the strategically significant coastal plain were key; and in northwestern Shanxi, governors dealt with border issues. Qing Governors and Their Provinces uses the records of governors’ appointments and the laws and practices that shaped them to reconstruct the development of the office of provincial governor and to examine the histories of governors’ appointments in each province. Interwoven throughout is colorful detail drawn from the governors’ biographies.

This book is the first comprehensive treatment of all the major human and ape fossils found in China. The book contains original analyses of a number of the fossils, and first-time translations of Chinese-language materials. Metric information is presented, to be used to compare with fossil samples from other parts of the world.

The book provides highlights on the key concepts and trends of evolution in History of Place Names in China, as one of the series of books of “China Classified Histories”.

China's extraordinary rise as an economic powerhouse in the past two decades poses a challenge to many long-held assumptions about the relationship between political institutions and economic development. Economic prosperity also was vitally important to the longevity of the Chinese Empire throughout the preindustrial era. Before the eighteenth century, China's economy shared some of the features, such as highly productive agriculture and sophisticated markets, found in the most advanced regions of Europe. But in many respects, from the central importance of irrigated rice farming to family structure, property rights, the status of merchants, the monetary system, and the imperial state's fiscal and economic policies, China's preindustrial economy diverged from the Western path of development. In this comprehensive but accessible study, Richard von Glahn examines the institutional foundations, continuities and discontinuities in China's economic development over three millennia, from the Bronze Age to the early twentieth century.