Imperial China, 900-1800 / Edition 1 available in Paperback, eBook
- 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
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Overview
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
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 LifeA 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.
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
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