The A To Z Of Medieval China

The crucial period of Chinese history, 220-960, falls naturally into contrasting phases. The first phase, also known as that of "early medieval China," is an age of political decentralization. Following the breakup of the Han empire, China was plunged into civil war and fragmentation and stayed divided for nearly four centuries. The second phase started in 589, during the Sui dynasty, when China was once again brought under a single government. Under the Sui, the bureaucracy was revitalized, the military strengthened, and the taxation system reformed. The fall of the Sui in 618 gave way to the even stronger Tang dynasty, which represents an apogee of traditional Chinese civilization. Inheriting all the great institutions developed under the Sui, the Tang made great achievements in poetry, painting, music, and architecture. The An Lushan rebellion, which also took place during Tang rule, brought about far-reaching changes in the socioeconomic, political, and military arenas. What transpired in the second half of the Tang and the ensuing Five Dynasties provided the foundation for the next age of late imperial China. The A to Z of Medieval China fills an urgent need for a standard reference tailored to the interest of Western academics and readers. The history of medieval China is related through the book's introductory essay, maps, a table of Dynastic Periods, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on key people, historical geography, arts, institutions, events, and other important terms.

The crucial period of Chinese history, 220-960, falls naturally into contrasting phases. The first phase, also known as that of "early medieval China," is an age of political decentralization. Following the breakup of the Han empire, China was plunged into civil war and fragmentation and stayed divided for nearly four centuries. The second phase started in 589, during the Sui dynasty, when China was once again brought under a single government. Under the Sui, the bureaucracy was revitalized, the military strengthened, and the taxation system reformed. The fall of the Sui in 618 gave way to the even stronger Tang dynasty, which represents an apogee of traditional Chinese civilization. Inheriting all the great institutions developed under the Sui, the Tang made great achievements in poetry, painting, music, and architecture. The An Lushan rebellion, which also took place during Tang rule, brought about far-reaching changes in the socioeconomic, political, and military arenas. What transpired in the second half of the Tang and the ensuing Five Dynasties provided the foundation for the next age of late imperial China. The Historical Dictionary of Medieval China fills an urgent need for a standard reference tailored to the interest of Western academics and readers. The history of medieval China is related through the book's introductory essay, maps, a table of Dynastic Periods, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on key people, historical geography, arts, institutions, events, and other important terms.

It’s the tantalizing smell of Chinese food that’s enticed the Binkerton children back into the creepy Good Times Travel Agency. Sure, the fried noodles are delicious, but then the shop owner pulls another one of his mysterious guidebooks off his shelf and before they can stop him, he’s sent the children hurtling back in time once again. This time they land in first-century China, where little Libby quickly manages to slip away from Josh and Emma in an official carriage headed to the capital city. But while she’s living the ancient China high life with nobility, the twins get mistaken for barbarian spies and soon they’re being chased by imperial guards! Will the twins manage to find Libby, and their way back home, before the guards catch up to them? This graphic novel from the critically acclaimed time-travel series by award-winning duo Linda Bailey and Bill Slavin offers a fun read with a terrific historical overview of ancient China. Bailey’s fast-paced narrative is quirky and funny. The fun device of featuring excerpts from an engagingly-written guidebook on every page keeps the key historical facts and figures easy to digest. Slavin’s detailed and humorous illustrations are pitch perfect for the story. Thoroughly researched, this book would be an excellent companion to social studies and history lessons, encompassing politics and government, philosophy, science and technology, travel and trade, civic rights and responsibilities, community and traditions. The back matter includes an index, further resources and six pages of additional information about ancient China.

For 2000 years the state-run libraries of imperial China systematically assembled standard collections of books from the past and present. Although the collections themselves were lost through warfare and fire, the classified catalogues prepared by the Privy Director of Books were often used in compiling national bibliographies for the state-sponsored dynastic histories. Through these and other catalogues we learn much about books now lost and even the contents of lost books can be sampled through quotations in medieval encyclopedias. These lectures discuss the dynamics of loss and survival; the role of the imperial state in manipulating book culture through classification and selective preservation; the significance of lost books as an index of superseded knowledge and values. An analysis of two specific cases demonstrates the insights to be gained through textual reconstruction and the inadequacies of standard classifications in times past and present. Medieval Chinese literature emerges as a richer, more problematic, less docile body of work than the orthodoxies of the last millennium would wish.

The long-awaited, first Western-language reference guide, this work offers a wealth of information on writers, genres, literary schools and terms of the Chinese literary tradition from earliest times to the seventh century C.E.

Even today the economic powerhouse of modern China takes strength and nourishment from its legacy of antiquity. Ancient China illuminates this venerable heritage with unprecedented scholarship and vividness.

Although scholars have long assumed that early Chinese political authority was rooted in Confucianism, rulership in the medieval period was not bound by a single dominant tradition. To acquire power, emperors deployed objects and figures derived from a range of traditions imbued with religious and political significance. Author April D. Hughes demonstrates how dynastic founders like Wu Zhao (Wu Zetian, r. 690–705), the only woman to rule China under her own name, and Yang Jian (Emperor Wen, r. 581–604), the first ruler of the Sui dynasty, closely identified with Buddhist worldly saviors and Wheel-Turning Kings to legitimate their rule. During periods of upheaval caused by the decline of the Dharma, worldly saviors arrived on earth to quell chaos and to rule and liberate their subjects simultaneously. By incorporating these figures into the imperial system, sovereigns were able to depict themselves both as monarchs and as buddhas or bodhisattvas in uncertain times. In this inventive and original work, Hughes traces worldly saviors—in particular Maitreya Buddha and Prince Moonlight—as they appeared in apocalyptic scriptures from Dunhuang, claims to the throne made by various rebel leaders, and textual interpretations and assertions by Yang Jian and Wu Zhao. Yang Jian associated himself with Prince Moonlight and took on the persona of a Wheel-Turning King whose offerings to the Buddha were not flowers and incense but weapons of war to reunite a long-fragmented empire and revitalize the Dharma. Wu Zhao was associated with several different worldly savior figures. In addition, she saw herself as the incarnation of a Wheel-Turning King for whom it was said the Seven Treasures manifested as material representations of his right to rule. Wu Zhao duly had the Seven Treasures created and put on display whenever she held audiences at court. The worldly savior figure allowed rulers to inhabit the highest role in the religious realm along with the supreme role in the political sphere. This incorporation transformed notions of Chinese imperial sovereignty, and associating rulers with a buddha or bodhisattva continued long after the close of the medieval period.

This first book-length treatment of a provincial military society in China's early medieval period offers a vivid portrait of this milieu and invites readers to reevaluate their understanding of a critical period in Chinese history. Drawing on poetry, local history, archaeology, and Buddhist materials, as well as more traditional historical sources, Andrew Chittick explores the culture and interrelationships of the leading figures of the Xiangyang region (in the north of modern Hubei province) in the centuries leading up to the Sui unification. Using the model of patron-client relations to characterize the interactions between local men and representatives of the southern court at Jiankang, the book emphasizes the way in which these interactions were shaped by personal ties and cultural and status differences. The result is a compelling explanation for the shifting, unstable, and violent nature of the political and military system of the southern dynasties. Offering a wider perspective which considers the social world beyond the capital elite, the book challenges earlier conceptions of medieval society as "aristocratic" and rooted in family lineage and officeholding. Andrew Chittick is E. Leslie Peter Associate Professor of East Asian Humanities at Eckerd College.