Imperial China, 900-1800 / Edition 1

Imperial China, 900-1800 / Edition 1

by F. W. Mote
ISBN-10:
0674012127
ISBN-13:
9780674012127
Pub. Date:
11/15/2003
Publisher:
Harvard University Press
ISBN-10:
0674012127
ISBN-13:
9780674012127
Pub. Date:
11/15/2003
Publisher:
Harvard University Press
Imperial China, 900-1800 / Edition 1

Imperial China, 900-1800 / Edition 1

by F. W. Mote
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Overview

This is a history of China for the 900-year time span of the late imperial period. A senior scholar of this epoch, F. W. Mote highlights the personal characteristics of the rulers and dynasties and probes the cultural theme of Chinese adaptations to recurrent alien rule. No other work provides a similar synthesis: generational events, personalities, and the spirit of the age combine to yield a comprehensive history of the civilization, not isolated but shaped by its relation to outsiders.

This vast panorama of the civilization of the largest society in human history reveals much about Chinese high and low culture, and the influential role of Confucian philosophical and social ideals. Throughout the Liao Empire, the world of the Song, the Mongol rule, and the early Qing through the Kangxi and Qianlong reigns, culture, ideas, and personalities are richly woven into the fabric of the political order and institutions. This is a monumental work that will stand among the classic accounts of the nature and vibrancy of Chinese civilization before the modern period.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780674012127
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: 11/15/2003
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 1128
Product dimensions: 6.38(w) x 10.00(h) x 2.00(d)

About the Author

F. W. Mote was Professor of Chinese History and Civilization, Emeritus, at Princeton University, author of Intellectual Foundations of China, and coeditor of several volumes of The Cambridge History of China.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

PART ONE: CONQUEST DYNASTIES AND THE NORTHERN SONG, 900-1127

The Five Dynasties

Later Imperial China's Place in History

The Course of Five Dynasties History

The Eastward Shift of the Political Center

Simultaneous Developments in the Ten States

China and Inner Asia in Geographic and Historical Perspective

Abaoji

The Khitans and Their Neighbors

Ethnic Diversity and Language Community

The Lessons of History

The New Leader Emerges

The Significance of Khitan Acculturation

Abaoji Receives Yao Kun, Envoy of the Later Tang Dynasty

Building the Liao Empire

Succession Issues after Abaoji

The Meaning of the Early Liao Succession Crises

The Khitan Inner Asian Tribal Empire

Liao-Korean Relations

Expansion into North China

Liao-Song Relations

Liao Civilization

Multicultural Adaptations

Khitan Society

Patterns of Acculturation

Buddhism in Khitan Life

Interpretations of Liao Success

Creating the Song Dynasty

The Vigor of the Later Zhou and the Founding of the Song

On Being the Emperor in Tenth-Century China

Governing China

The Military Problem

The World of Ideas in Northern Song China

The Man of the Age: Ouyang Xiu

The Course of a Song Dynasty Official Career

The Civil Service Examination System

The Social Impact of the Song Examination System

Political Reform and Political Thought

Neo-Confucian Political Thought

Dimensions of Northern Song Life

High Culture

The Example of Su Shi

The New Elite and Song High Culture

Religion in Song Life

Song Society

Origins of the Xi Xia State

The Tangut People: Names and Ethnic Identities

Early History of the Tangut Tribal People

The Tanguts Come into the Song Orbit

Yuan-hao Proclaims the Xi Xia Dynasty

The Xi Xia as an Imperial Dynasty

PART TWO: CONQUEST DYNASTIES AND THE SOUTHERN SONG, 1127-1279

The "Wild Jurchens" Erupt into History

Aguda's Challenge

The End of the Liao Dynasty

The Northern Song Falls to the Jurchens

Who Were These Jurchens?

Explaining the Jurchens' Success

The Jurchen State and Its Cultural Policy

The Conquerors Turn to Governing

The Period of Dual Institutions, 1115-1135

The Era of Centralization, 1135-1161

The Period of Nativist Reaction, 1161-1208

The End of the Jin Dynasty, 1208-1234

The Later Xi Xia State

Xi Xia in the Era of the Jin Dynasty, 1115-1227

The Crisis of the "Partition of the State"

The Destruction of the Xi Xia State

The Tangut Achievement

Xia Buddhism

Trends of Change under Jin Alien Rule

Divisions: North and South, Chinese and Non-Chinese

Jurchen Dominance

The Impact of the Civil Service Examinations

High Culture during the Jin Dynasty

Economic Life under the Jin

The Southern Song and Chinese Survival

A Fleeing PrinceCA New Emperor

War versus Peace

Patterns of High Politics after the Treaty of 1141

Chinese Civilization and the Song Achievement

New Social Factors

Elite Lives and Song High Culture

Confucian Thinkers

Other Kinds of Elite Lives

Some Generalizations about the Song Elite

Southern Song Life—A Broader View

Calculating Song China's Population

Governing at the Local Level

Paying for Government

Status in the Chinese Population

Urban and Rural

Families, Women, and Children

VA Poet's Observations

A Mid-Thirteenth-Century Overview

The Heritage of the Liao, Xi Xia, and Jin Periods

The System of Ritualized Interstate Relations

The Growing Scope of International Trade

Cultural Interaction

PART THREE: CHINA AND THE MONGOL WORLD

The Career of the Great Khan Chinggis

Backgrounds of Mongol History

The Ethnic Geography of Inner Asia in the Late Twelfth Century

Mongol Nomadic Economy and Social Life

The Mongols Emerge into History

The Youth of Temüjin

Chinggis Khan as Nation Builder

Forging the Mongol World Empire, 1206-1259

The Nearer Horizons of Empire, 1206-1217

The First Campaign to the West, 1218-1225

Chinggis Khan, the Man

The Second Campaign to the West, 1236-1241

Mongol Adaptations to China under Chinggis and Ögödei

Möngke Khan and the Third Campaign to the West

Relations among the Four Khanates

Khubilai Khan Becomes Emperor of China

The Early Life of Khubilai

Khubilai and His Chinese Advisers before 1260

As Möngke's Field General in China

Maneuvering to Become the Great Khan

The Great Khan Khubilai Becomes Emperor of China

The Conquest of the Southern Song, 1267-1279

The War against Khaidu

Khubilai's Later Years

Khubilai Khan's Successors, 1294-1370

China under Mongol Rule

Yuan Government

Managing Society and Staffing the Government

Religions

China's People under Mongol Rule

The Yuan Cultural Achievement

PART FOUR: THE RESTORATION OF NATIVE RULE UNDER THE MING, 1368-1644

From Chaos toward a New Chinese Order

Disintegration

Competitors for Power Emerge

Rival Contenders, 1351-1368

Zhu Yuanzhang, Boy to Young Man

Zhu Yuanzhang Builds His Ming Dynasty

Learning to Be an Emperor

Setting the Pattern of His Dynasty

Constructing a Capital and a Government

The Enigma of Zhu Yuanzhang

Civil War and Usurpation, 1399-1402

The New Era

The Thought of Fang Xiaoru: What Might Have Been

From Prince to Emperor

The "Second Founding" of the Ming Dynasty

Ming Chengzu's Imprint on Ming Governing

The Eunuch Establishment and the Imperial Bodyguard

Defending Throne and State

Securing China's Place in the Asian World

The New Capital

Ming China in the Fifteenth Century

Successors to the Yongle Emperor

The Mechanics of Government

The Grand Canal in Ming Times

The Changing World of the Sixteenth Century

Emperor Wuzong, 1505-1521

Emperor Shizong's Accession

The Rites Controversy

Emperor Shizong and Daoism

The Emperor Shizong and His Officials

Wang Yangming and Sixteenth-Century Confucian Thought

Ming China's Borders

Border Zones, Zones of Interaction

Tension and Peril on the Northern Borders

Tibet and the Western Borders

The "Soft Border" of the Chinese South

The Maritime Borders of Eastern China

Late Ming Political Decline, 1567-1627

The Brief Reign of Emperor Muzong, 1567-1572

Zhang Juzheng's Leadership and the Wanli Reign

The Wanli Emperor's Successors

The Lively Society of the Late Ming

The Population of Ming China

The Organization of Rural Society

Ming Cities, Towns, and Urban People: The Question of Capitalism

Late Ming Elite Culture

The Course of Ming Failure

Launching the Chongzhen Reign: Random Inadequacies, Persistent Hopes

The Manchu Invaders

The "Roving Bandits"

Beijing, Spring 1644

PART FIVE: CHINA AND THE WORLD IN EARLY QING TIMES

Alien Rule Returns

Beijing: The City Ravaged

The Drama at Shanhai Guan, April-May

Beijing Becomes the New Qing Capital

The Shunzhi Emperor, 1644-1662

The Southern Ming Challenge to Qing Hegemony, 1644-1662

The Manchu Offensive

VThe Longwu Regime: Fuzhou, July 1645-October 1646

VMing Loyalist Activity after 1646

The Kangxi Emperor: Coming of Age

Difficult Beginnings

Rebellion, 1673-1681

The Conquest of Taiwan

Ming Loyalism and Intellectual Currents in the Early Qing

The Kangxi Reign: The Emperor and His Empire

Banner Lands and the Manchu Migration into China

Recruitment and the Examination System

The Mongols on the Northern Borders

Manchu/Qing Power and the Problem of Tibet

Court Factions

The Succession Crisis

The Yongzheng Emperor as Man and Ruler

Imperial Style, Political Substance

Changing the Machinery of Government

Other Governing Measures

Military Campaigns and Border Policies

Population Growth and Social Conditions

Taxation and the Yongzheng Reforms

Splendor and Degeneration, 1736-1799

Changing Assessments

Hongli

Political Measures

Cultural Control Measures

A Late Flowering of Thought and Learning

The Qianlong Emperor's Military Campaigns

VChina in the Eighteenth Century

China's Legacy in a Changing World

The Background of China's International Relations

Mutual Recognition

Economic Interactions

Broadened Horizons of Religion, Philosophy, and Practical Knowledge

Diplomatic and Military Threats

An Old Civilization in a New World

Appendix: Conversion Table, Pinyin to Wade-Giles

Notes

Bibliography

Index

What People are Saying About This

A major contribution to our present literature on the general historiography of late Imperial China. Not only is it eminently accessible to a wide nonspecialized intellectual public, it also provides a major corrective within the field to some of the tendencies that have dominated the writing of Chinese history. Mote has highly cogent things to say about the nature of what has been called the 'gentry' in China and highly relevant questions to raise about the notion of a demographic explosion in eighteenth-century China and examines many of the prevailing abstract conceptions which dominate the field. Yet, he vividly demonstrated how limited our effort has been to explore in depth the vast documentary materials available to us, which are supposed to provide the 'empirical data' for our models, paradigms, and structural theories. Mote's major contribution is his detailed account of the growing complexity of relations between the Chinese state and the surrounding East Asian world during the period 900-1800.

John W. Dardess

A personal meditation on the later imperial history of China by an author who has studied and taught the subject all his life and whose knowledge of it is truly formidable. It is written in a readable, accessible style that attracts the reader's sustained attention.
John W. Dardess, University of Kansas

Benjamin I. Schwartz

A major contribution to our present literature on the general historiography of late Imperial China. Not only is it eminently accessible to a wide nonspecialized intellectual public, it also provides a major corrective within the field to some of the tendencies that have dominated the writing of Chinese history. Mote has highly cogent things to say about the nature of what has been called the 'gentry' in China and highly relevant questions to raise about the notion of a demographic explosion in eighteenth-century China and examines many of the prevailing abstract conceptions which dominate the field. Yet, he vividly demonstrated how limited our effort has been to explore in depth the vast documentary materials available to us, which are supposed to provide the 'empirical data' for our models, paradigms, and structural theories. Mote's major contribution is his detailed account of the growing complexity of relations between the Chinese state and the surrounding East Asian world during the period 900-1800.
Benjamin I. Schwartz, Harvard University

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