Early Medieval China
Title | Early Medieval China PDF eBook |
Author | Wendy Swartz |
Publisher | Columbia University Press |
Pages | 745 |
Release | 2014-03-11 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0231531001 |
This innovative sourcebook builds a dynamic understanding of China's early medieval period (220–589) through an original selection and arrangement of literary, historical, religious, and critical texts. A tumultuous and formative era, these centuries saw the longest stretch of political fragmentation in China's imperial history, resulting in new ethnic configurations, the rise of powerful clans, and a pervasive divide between north and south. Deploying thematic categories, the editors sketch the period in a novel way for students and, by featuring many texts translated into English for the first time, recast the era for specialists. Thematic topics include regional definitions and tensions, governing mechanisms and social reality, ideas of self and other, relations with the unseen world, everyday life, and cultural concepts. Within each section, the editors and translators introduce the selected texts and provide critical commentary on their historical significance, along with suggestions for further reading and research.
A Social History of Medieval China
Title | A Social History of Medieval China PDF eBook |
Author | Ruixi Zhu |
Publisher | |
Pages | |
Release | 2016-09 |
Genre | |
ISBN | 9781316618349 |
Conquerors and Rulers Social Forces in Medieval China
Title | Conquerors and Rulers Social Forces in Medieval China PDF eBook |
Author | Wolfram Eberhard |
Publisher | Brill Archive |
Pages | 212 |
Release | 1952 |
Genre | Social classes |
ISBN |
Kingship in Early Medieval China
Title | Kingship in Early Medieval China PDF eBook |
Author | Andrew Eisenberg |
Publisher | BRILL |
Pages | 292 |
Release | 2008-02-28 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 9047432304 |
The institution of the Retired Emperor forms the innovative angle from which this study analyzes Classical Chinese political history (4th to 7th centuries A.D.) With the help of the ensuing insights the volume develops into a portal through which to gain understanding of broader patterns of political and social action relevant to the Classical Chinese monarchy. In this truly interdisciplinary approach Weberian historical sociological concepts are engaged as a means of bringing specific historical actions into a wider cross cultural comparative perspective and lays the basis for a new framework to think about kingship and succession in East Asia.
The Rise and Fall of Imperial China
Title | The Rise and Fall of Imperial China PDF eBook |
Author | Yuhua Wang |
Publisher | Princeton University Press |
Pages | 352 |
Release | 2022-10-11 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 0691237514 |
How social networks shaped the imperial Chinese state China was the world’s leading superpower for almost two millennia, falling behind only in the last two centuries and now rising to dominance again. What factors led to imperial China’s decline? The Rise and Fall of Imperial China offers a systematic look at the Chinese state from the seventh century through to the twentieth. Focusing on how short-lived emperors often ruled a strong state while long-lasting emperors governed a weak one, Yuhua Wang shows why lessons from China’s history can help us better understand state building. Wang argues that Chinese rulers faced a fundamental trade-off that he calls the sovereign’s dilemma: a coherent elite that could collectively strengthen the state could also overthrow the ruler. This dilemma emerged because strengthening state capacity and keeping rulers in power for longer required different social networks in which central elites were embedded. Wang examines how these social networks shaped the Chinese state, and vice versa, and he looks at how the ruler’s pursuit of power by fragmenting the elites became the final culprit for China’s fall. Drawing on more than a thousand years of Chinese history, The Rise and Fall of Imperial China highlights the role of elite social relations in influencing the trajectories of state development.
The Medieval Chinese Oliogarchy
Title | The Medieval Chinese Oliogarchy PDF eBook |
Author | David C Johnson |
Publisher | Routledge |
Pages | 297 |
Release | 2019-09-10 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 0429726279 |
Most modern scholars recognize that there were great differences between China's ruling elite in the middle and late traditional period; many have called the period up through the T'ang dynasty "aristocratic," in contrast to the more meritocratic and socially mobile age that followed. But until now there has been no serious effort to discover how the social elite was defined in medieval times, and who belonged to it. David Johnson discusses in detail medieval definitions of the social elite, and, with the help of several manuscripts of the ninth century, identifies the families that belonged to that class.
Medieval Chinese Society and the Local Community
Title | Medieval Chinese Society and the Local Community PDF eBook |
Author | Tanigawa Michio |
Publisher | University of California Press |
Pages | 182 |
Release | 2021-01-08 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0520316452 |
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.