History

This engaging, deeply informed book provides the first concise history of one of China's most important eras. Leading scholar John Dardess offers a thematically organized political, social, and economic exploration of China from 1368 to 1644. He examines how the Ming dynasty was able to endure for 276 years, illuminating Ming foreign relations and border control, the lives and careers of its sixteen emperors, its system of governance and the kinds of people who served it, its great class of literati, and finally the mass outlawry that, in unhappy conjunction with the Manchu invasions from outside, ended the once-mighty dynasty in the mid-seventeenth century. The Ming witnessed the beginning of China's contact with the West, and its story will fascinate all readers interested in global as well as Asian history.

Early Ming China: A Political History, 1355–1435) is a penetrating, in-depth political history of the dynasty's formative period. The first work in a Western language to deal with the founding stage of the Ming dynasty, it was hailed as a painstakingly researched, pioneering analysis of the early Ming, covering five major areas: warfare, the geographical basis of power, military institutions, foreign affairs, and government administration.

"The Mongol takeover in the 1270s changed the course of Chinese history. The Confucian empire--a millennium and a half in the making--was suddenly thrust under foreign occupation. What China had been before its reunification as the Yuan dynasty in 1279 was no longer what it would be in the future. Four centuries later, another wave of steppe invaders would replace the Ming dynasty with yet another foreign occupation. The Troubled Empire explores what happened to China between these two dramatic invasions.If anything defined the complex dynamics of this period, it was changes in the weather. Asia, like Europe, experienced a Little Ice Age, and as temperatures fell in the thirteenth century, Kublai Khan moved south into China. His Yuan dynasty collapsed in less than a century, but Mongol values lived on in Ming institutions. A second blast of cold in the 1630s, combined with drought, was more than the dynasty could stand, and the Ming fell to Manchu invaders.Against this background--the first coherent ecological history of China in this period--Timothy Brook explores the growth of autocracy, social complexity, and commercialization, paying special attention to China's incorporation into the larger South China Sea economy. These changes not only shaped what China would become but contributed to the formation of the early modern world."

Describes the government, economy, social structure, and history of the Ming dynasty, and offers a picture of what life was like in China between 1368 and 1644.

In 1587, the Year of the Pig, nothing very special happened in China. Yet in the seemingly unspectacular events of this ordinary year, Ray Huang finds exemplified the roots of China's perennial inability to adapt to change. With fascinating accounts of the lives of seven prominent officials, he fashions a remarkably vivid portrayal of the court and the ruling class of late imperial China. In revealing the subtle but inexorable forces that brought about the paralysis and final collapse of the Ming dynasty, Huang offers the reader perspective into the problems China has faced through the centuries.

This book, full of quantitative evidence and limited-circulation archives, details manufacturing and the beginnings of industrialisation in China from 1644 to 1911. It thoroughly examines the interior organisation of public craft production and the complementary activities of the private sector. It offers detailed knowledge of shipbuilding and printing. Moreover, it contributes to the research of labour history and the rise of capitalism in China through its examination of living conditions, working conditions, and wages.

The most complete and authoritative look at the last feudal monarchy in China's long history, A Concise History of the Qing Dynasty (4-volume set) details the birth of what would become modern-day China. Covering the fall of the Manchurians, these 4 volumes offer a comprehensive look at the last dynasty in China. Under Qing rule, China saw art and culture flourish even while the nation faced invasion by hostile foreign powers and oppression under the subsequent unequal treaties. A Concise History of the Qing Dynasty (4-volume set) is a landmark work on Chinese history by China's leading expert on the Qing era. Dai Yi explores every facet of the Qing's empire and the dynasty's rule. The roots of the structure of today's China can be traced back to the last dynasty in China.

China's Qing Dynasty gave the fading glory of the Ming Dynasty a fresh and fabulous new start. From the early 1600s to the 1700s, a series of able leaders expanded and strengthened the realm, making China an economic and cultural powerhouse again. Important steps along the way are related in this straightforward narrative. The Manchu people, a nomadic tribe from the northeast, rose up in 1616 and took the lead for the new era. The great leader Nurhaci step by step took control of the weakened empire. Renewed stability brought prosperity, and prosperity enabled noteworthy advances in technology and the arts. The Qing Dynasty's great inventions and sophisticated culture became influential throughout Asia and beyThe Manchu people, a nomadic tribe from the northeast, rose up in 1616 and took the lead for the new era. The great leader Nurhaci step by step took control of the weakened empire. His successors went on to drive away Russian incursions, to re-unite with Taiwan, and to settle unrest in the regions. Tax reforms and administrative improvements helped solidify the gains. Stability brought prosperity, and prosperity enabled noteworthy innovations in technology and the arts. The Qing Dynasty's great inventions and sophisticated culture became influential throughout Asia and beyond, and China remained a superpower right up to the 20th century. This book tells how they achieved the circumstances that made those advances possible. Drawing on the classical Chinese writings, Hung Hing Ming, a former UN translator, outlines the steps that set China back on the path of progress. His narrative shows the accomplishments of the people and the societal characteristics, the values, that united a disparate population and fostered their success.

Although it is generally believed that the Manchus controlled the Mongols through their patronage of Tibetan Buddhism, scant attention has been paid to the Mongol view of the Qing imperial project. In contrast to other accounts of Manchu rule, Our Great Qing focuses not only on what images the metropole wished to project into Mongolia, but also on what images the Mongols acknowledged themselves. Rather than accepting the Manchu's use of Buddhism, Johan Elverskog begins by questioning the static, unhistorical, and hegemonic view of political life implicit in the Buddhist explanation. By stressing instead the fluidity of identity and Buddhist practice as processes continually developing in relation to state formations, this work explores how Qing policies were understood by Mongols and how they came to see themselves as Qing subjects.

Eighteenth-century consumers of the Qing and Ottoman empires had access to an increasingly diverse array of goods, from home furnishings to fashionable clothes and new foodstuffs. While this tendency was of shorter duration and intensity in the Ottoman world, some urbanites of the sultans' realm did enjoy silks, coffee, and Chinese porcelain. By contrast, a vibrant consumer culture flourished in Qing China, where many consumers flaunted their fur coats and indulged in gourmet dining. Living the Good Life explores how goods furthered the expansion of social networks, alliance-building between rulers and regional elites, and the expression of elite, urban, and gender identities. The scholarship in the present volume highlights the recently emerging "material turn" in Qing and Ottoman historiographies and provides a framework for future research. Contributors: Arif Bilgin, Michael G. Chang, Edhem Eldem, Colette Establet, Antonia Finnane, Selim Karahasanoglu, Lai Hui-min, Amanda Phillips, Hedda Reindl-Kiel, Martina Siebert, Su Te-Cheng, Joanna Waley-Cohen, Wang Dagang, Wu Jen-shu, Yıldız Yılmaz, and Yun Yan.

The Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) was the last and arguably the greatest of the conquest dynasties to rule China. Its rulers, Manchus from the north, held power for three centuries despite major cultural and ideological differences with the Han majority. In this book, Evelyn Rawski offers a bold new interpretation of the remarkable success of this dynasty, arguing that it derived not from the assimilation of the dominant Chinese culture, as has previously been believed, but rather from an artful synthesis of Manchu leadership styles with Han Chinese policies.

This pathbreaking work argues that the major intellectual trend in China from the seventeenth through the early nineteenth century was Confucian ritualism, as expressed in ethics, classical learning, and discourse on lineage. Reviews "Chow has produced a work of superb scholarship, fluently written and beautifully researched. . . . One of the landmarks of the current reconstruction of the social philosophy of the Qing dynasty. . . . Chow's book is indispensable. It has illuminating analyses of many mainstream writers, institutions, and social categories in eighteenth-century China which have never previously been examined." --Canadian Journal of History "Chow's monograph moves ritual to center stage in late imperial social and intellectual history, and the author makes a powerful case for doing so. . . . Because the author understands the intellectual history of late Ming and Qing as the history of a movement, or successive movements, of fundamental social reform, he has also made an important contribution to social and political history as these were related to intellectual history." --Journal of Chinese Religion "Chow's book is an excellent contribution to recent scholarship on the intellectual history of the Confucian tradition and provides a balance for other studies that have emphasized ideas to the exclusion of symbols." --The Historian

In the twenty-first century, China has emerged as the leading challenger to U.S. global dominance. China is often seen as a sleeping giant, emerging out of poverty, backwardness, and totalitarianism and moving toward modernization. However, history shows that this vast country is not newly awakening, but rather returning to its previous state of world eminence. With this compelling perspective in mind, D. E. Mungello convincingly shows that contemporary relations between China and the West are far more like the 1500-1800 period than the more recent past. This fully revised second edition retains the clear and concise qualities of its predecessor, while developing important new social and cultural themes such as gender, sexuality, music, and technology. Drawing from the author's thirty years of experience teaching world history, this book illustrates the importance of history to students and general readers trying to understand today's world. Visit our website for sample chapters!