Synopses & Reviews
With a design inviting to today's students, this full-color concise book emphasizes Chinese cultural history while also covering political and economic history. Highlighting key topics with 89 illustrations, including maps, timelines, and other photos, this text provides brief, yet complete coverage of each major Chinese dynasty. To round off the book, additional discrete periods are examined in a separate chapter. New co-author, Miranda Brown covers the first three chapters, "China in Antiquity," "Turbulent Times in Classical Thought," and "The Early Imperial Period," while Conrad Schirokauer writes the balance of the text. This text also addresses recent developments in China, up to and including the massacre at Tiananmen Square, Foreign Relations and Hong Kong and Intellectuals and Artists in the Nineties and Into the New Century.
Synopsis
This concise book emphasizes Chinese cultural history while also covering political and economic history. It is introductory in both style and content, and the organization is kept as simple as possible. Brief coverage of each major Chinese dynasty or other discrete period is treated in a separate chapter. Coverage includes recent developments in China, up to and including the massacre at Tiananmen Square. Timelines, charts, or key dates appear at the beginning of chapters. Chinese names are printed in Pinyin with Wade-Giles in parentheses.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 384-394) and index.
About the Author
Conrad Schirokauer, Senior Scholar and Adjunct Professor at Columbia 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 CHINAS EXAMINATION HELL by Miyazaki Ichisada (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976,1981), which he recommends to any student who feels burdened by examinations.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. "China" In Antiquity. The Neolithic. The Origins of Chinese Writing. The Rise of the Bronze Age. The Shang. The Western Zhou Dynasty. The Book of Odes. 2. Turbulent Times and Classical Thought. The Spring and Autumn Period. The Rise of Hegemons. The Warring States Period. "The Hundred Schools." Confucius. Mozi. Mencius. Xunzi. Laozi and Zhuangzi. Han Feizi. 3. The Early Imperial Period. Qin. Sources and Historiographical Problems. Reappraisals. Han. The Formative Years. The Quality of Han Rule. The Xiongnu and Other Neighboring Peoples. Intellectual Movements. The Visual Art and Poetry. Changes in Political Economy during the Han period: Women. Fall of the Han. Part II: CHINA IN A BUDDHIST AGE. 4. China During The Period Of Disunity. The Fundamentals of Buddhism. A World in Disarray. China Divided. Buddhism in the North. Daoism ? The Religion. The South. Poetry. Calligraphy. Painting. Buddhism in the South. China on the Eve of Unification. 5. The Cosmopolitan Civilization Of The Sui And Tang: 581-907. The Sui (581-617). The Tang: EstablishmentandConsolidation. GaozongandEmpress Wu. High Tang. Chang'an. The Flourishing of Buddhism. Daoism. The Rebellion of An Lushan (755-763). Li BaiandDu Fu. Late Tang. Late Tang PoetryandCulture. Collapse of the Dynasty. Part III: LATE IMPERIAL/EARLY MODERN. 6. China During the Song: 960-1279. The Founding. A New Elite. The Examination System. The Northern Song. Government and Politics. Wang Anshi. The Economy. The Religious Scene. The Confucian Revival. Poetry and Painting. The Southern Song (1127-1279). Southern Song Cities and Commerce. Literary and Visual Arts. "Neo-Confucianism". Values and Gender . The End. 7. The Mongol Empire and the Yuan Dynasty. Chinggis Khan: Founding of the Mongol Empire. China under the Mongols: The Early Years (1211-1260). Khubilai Khan and the Early Yuan. The Yuan continued, 1294-1355. The Economy. Society. Religion. Cultural and Intellectual Life. "Northern" Drama. Painting. Rebellions and Disintegration. 8. The Ming Dynasty 1368-1644. The Early Ming (1368 -1424). Maritime Expeditions (1405-1433). The Early Middle Period (1425-1505). The Later Middle Period (1506-1590). Economy and Society. Literacy and Literature. The Novel. Drama. Painting. Ming Thought: Wang Yangming. Religion. Ming Thought after Wang Yangming. Dong Qichang and Late Ming Painting. Late Ming Government (1590-1644). 9. East Asia and Modern Europe: First Encounters. The Portuguese in East Asia. The Jesuits in Japan. The Impact of Other Europeans. The "Closing" of Japan. The Jesuits in China. The Rites Controversy. The Decline of Christianity in China. Trade with the West and the Canton System. 10. The Qing Dynasty. The Founding of the Qing. Early Qing Painters and Thinkers. The Reign of Kangxi. Yongzheng. Qianlong. Eighteenth Century Governance. Eighteenth-Century Literati Culture. Fiction. A Buoyant Economy. Social Change. Ecology. Dynastic Decline. Part IV: CHINA IN THE MODERN WORLD. 11. The Troubled Nineteenth Century, Part I The Opium War and Taiping Rebellion. The Opium War (1839?1841) and Its Causes, The Treaty of Nanjing and the Treaty System, Internal Crisis, The Taiping Rebellion (1850?1864), Zeng Guofan and the Defeat of the Taiping, China and the World from the Treaty of Nanjing to the End of the Taiping, PART II 1870-94. The Post-Taiping Revival, Self-Strengthening?the First Phase, Self-Strengthening?the Theory, The Empress Dowager and the Government Education Economic Self-Strengthening, The Traditional Economic Sector, Missionary Efforts and Christian Influences, Old Wine in New Bottles, Part III Foreign Relations. Continued Pressures, Vietnam and the Sino-French War of 1884-1885, Korea and the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, The Treaty of Shimonoseki (April 1895). 12. Endings and Beginnings, 1895?1927, Part 1. The Last Years of the Last Dynasty. The New Reformers, The Scramble for Concessions, The Boxer Rising, Winds of Change, Stirrings of Protest and Revolution, Eleventh-Hour Reform The Revolution of 1911, Part II. From Yuan Shikai to Chiang Kai-shek Yuan Shikai, The Warlord Era, Intellectual Ferment, Intellectual Alternatives, Cultural Alternatives, Marxism in China: The Early Years, The Guomindang and Sun Yat-sen (1913?1923), GMD and C.C.P. Cooperation (1923?1927), The Break, Establishment of the Nationalist Government. Part V: BUILDING A NEW CHINA. 13. China Under the Nationalists. The Nanjing Decade, The Nanjing Decade?Domestic Policies, The Chinese Communists, 1927?1934, The Long March, United Front and War, Expansion of the War into a Pacific War, The Course of the War, China at War, Japan at War, The End of the Second World War, Taiwan, Civil War and Communist Triumph, 1946-1949. 14. China Under Mao. Part I. Consolidation and Construction Soviet Style, 1949?1958, Government and Politics, Foreign Relations and the Korean War, Economic Policies, Thought Reform and Intellectuals, Part II. The Revolution Continued, 1958?1976, The Great Leap Forward , The Sino-Soviet Split, Domestic Politics, 1961?1965, The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: The Radical Phase, 1966?1969, The Winding Down, 1969?1976. 15. The Chinese World Since Mao. Deng Xiaoping and the Four Modernizations, The Four Cardinal Principles, Intellectual Life and the Arts in the Eighties, Tiananmen, State, Economy, and Society in the Nineties and Into the New Century, The Environment, The Revival of Religion, Foreign Relations and Hong Kong, Intellectuals and Artists in the Nineties and Into the New Century, Taiwan. AFTERWORD. Suggestions for Further Study.