Synopses & Reviews
This full-color introductory text emphasizes cultural history while also covering political and economic history. Each major Chinese dynasty, Japanese Shogunate, or other discrete period is covered in a separate, brief chapter. Encounters with the West (beginning in the 16th century) are also extensively covered. In addition to Conrad Schirokauer, this text has three new co-authors. Miranda Brown teaches in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and focuses on early Chinese culture. David Lurie researches the history of writing systems in Japan and also works on the cultural and intellectual history of Japan through the Heian period. Suzanne Gay is Professor of East Asian Studies at Oberlin College. Her research interests include the social and economic history of medieval Japan, with a particular emphasis on the role of commoners in history. This author team combines strong research with extensive classroom teaching experience to offer a clear, consistent, and highly readable text accessible to students with no previous knowledge of the history of China or Japan.
Synopsis
A brief introductory text that emphasizes cultural history while also covering political and economic history. Chapters are brief and each major Chinese dynasty, Japanese Shogunate, or other discrete period is treated in a separate chapter. Encounters with the West (beginning in the 16th century) are extensively covered.
About the Author
Conrad Schirokauer, Senior Scholar and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and Professor Emeritus at the City University of New York, received his doctorate from Stanford. He has studied in Paris and conducted research in Japan and China. His published papers and articles deal mostly with Song intellectual history. He is co-editor, with Robert Hymes, of ORDERING THE WORLD: APPROACHES TO STATE AND SOCIETY IN SUNG DYNASTY CHINA (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). His current research is on Song perceptions of and attitudes toward history. Schirokauer was associated with a New York University summer graduate program for teachers in Japan and China and remains interested in how history is taught and written. As a textbook author, he has published A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHINESE AND JAPANESE CIVILIZATIONS (Second Edition 1989), with separate volumes on China (1990) and Japan (1993), all now available from Wadsworth. Also worth mention, is his translation of CHINA'S EXAMINATION HELL by Miyazaki Ichisada (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976,1981), which he recommends to any student who feels burdened by examinations.
Table of Contents
Part I: THE CLASSICAL CIVILIZATION OF CHINA. 1. Chinese Antiquity. 2. Turbulent Times and Classical Thought. 3. The Early Imperial Period. Part II: CHINA AND JAPAN IN A BUDDHIST AGE. 4. China during the Period of Disunity. 5. The Cosmopolitan Civilization of the Sui and Tang: 581-907. 6. Early Japan To 794. 7. Heian Japan. Part III: A NEW AND CRUCIAL PHASE. 8. China during the Song: 960-1279. 9. The Mongol Empire and The Yuan Dynasty. 10. The Ming Dynasty: 1368-1644. 11. Japan in the Kamakura Period in Japan. 12. Muromachi Japan. 13. East Asia and Modern Europe: First Encounters. Part IV: LAST DYNASTIES. 14. Tokugawa: Background, Establishment, and Middle Years. 15. The Qing Dynasty. Part V: CHINA AND JAPAN IN THE MODERN WORLD. 16. China: The Troubled Nineteenth Century. 17. Japan: Endings and Beginnings: From Tokugawa to Meiji, 1787-1873. 18. The Emergence of Modern Japan: 1874-1894. 19. China: Endings and Beginnings, 1894-1927. 20. Imperial Japan: 1895-1931. 21. The 1930s and World War II. Part VI: EAST ASIA SINCE WORLD WAR II. 22. The Aftermath of the War and Unfinished Business. 23. China under Mao. 24. The Chinese World since Mao. 25. The New Japan. Afterword. Appendix: Suggestions for Further. Study Photo Credits Text Credits. Index.