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Relations between the Choson and Qing states are often cited as the prime example of the operation of the “traditional” Chinese “tribute system.” In contrast, this work contends that the motivations, tactics, and successes (and failures) of the late Qing Empire in Choson Korea mirrored those of other nineteenth-century imperialists. Between 1850 and 1910, the Qing attempted to defend its informal empire in Korea by intervening directly, not only to preserve its geopolitical position but also to promote its commercial interests. And it utilized the technology of empire—treaties, international law, the telegraph, steamships, and gunboats.

Although the transformation of Qing-Choson diplomacy was based on modern imperialism, this work argues that it is more accurate to describe the dramatic shift in relations in terms of flexible adaptation by one of the world’s major empires in response to new challenges. Moreover, the new modes of Qing imperialism were a hybrid of East Asian and Western mechanisms and institutions. Through these means, the Qing Empire played a fundamental role in Korea’s integration into regional and global political and economic systems.

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This book describes how the Chinese government, between about 620 and 850, developed an official organization designed to select, process, and edit material for inclusion in official historical works eventually to be incorporated in an official history of the dynasty. The first part gives a detailed account of the establishment of the official apparatus designed to produce a record of the T'ang dynasty, which would remain standard for more than a millennium, with some analysis of the individuals who served in these offices. The second part gives all available detail about the various works produced by this apparatus, divided among its various genres, and listing all known titles, their authorship, and their relationships to one another. The third part shows the cumulative process by which a dynastic history came into being, and the way in which we can detect various elements in the completed history. ... Read more

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The oneness of China is the norm. Periods of divisions are aberrations. This is how Chinese thinkers, leaders and ultimately the majority of Chinese people have regarded Chinese politics and history for more than 2,000 years.The oneness was never perfect. As long as certain minimal conditions were met and the polity which proclaimed that oneness was widely acknowledged, that was enough. Chinese ruling elites adopted this pragmatic approach so they could ensure that the ideal could always approximate China s reality.This is a revised edition of a study undertaken to explain what happened during one of the worst periods of division in Chinese history. What were the key factors that helped the centripetal forces to get back to the imperial norm? It begins with the final stage of decline of the Tang dynasty (618 907) and ends 50 years later when it became clear that the foundations for a last push towards unification were in place. ... Read more

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During the traumatic opening decades of the Southern Sung, Emperor Kao-tsung's unspoken determination to win imperial safety at any cost shaped not only court policy but Confucian intellectual developments. The intellectual climate of the Northern Sung had been confident, buoyant, outreaching, and exploratory; in the Southern Sung, it turned inward. The turn was not, however, a simple turn to conservative moral and political Confucianism; and in this book, James T. C. Liu explores how Kao-tsung used ideological window-dressing to consolidate extraordinary state power in the emperor's hands. Ups and downs in the political fortunes of moralistic conservatives are also specially examined for their effects on the nature of the Neo-Confucianism that eventually became state orthodoxy.

Customer Reviews (2)

A person
Actually James Liu's opinion is useful for us to study in Sung China, especially for the Chinese scholars. There is nearly no Chinese Mainland scholars study inSung's cultural history by conceptual thinking.Maybethey feel difficult in reading English, but Liu's book is so important forthem.

good for an academic study
For the readers who work in this specific area of academic study, say, the study of the culture of Sung China, this book is practically useful. It is a think-tank-like source. Personaly, I am very interested in the author'sopinion about the cultural trend in the Sung period. The opinion is shownin the title of the book: China Turning Inward. This opinion can help us tounderstand and interprete the intellectual, cultural, literary, andartistic changes of that time. ... Read more

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A preliminary perusal of a published set of rare, old bKa-brgyud-pa manuscript texts that recently surfaced in Lhasa soon disclosed that it indeed represents a veritable treasure-trove of diverse but important texts, far more than just texts related to the Bri-gung lore and school. Acknowledging its immense importance as well as the urgengy for a prompt presentation to an academic audience of at least some of the most interesting rarissima, it was decided to select a number of the historical and ecclesiastical sources for special treatment in this publication. ... Read more

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Explores both the literary features and historical context of poetry written for imperial rulers during China's early medieval period. ... Read more

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Between the Han dynasty, founded in 206 B.C.E., and the Sui, which ended in 618 C.E., Chinese authors wrote many thousands of short textual items, each of which narrated or described some phenomenon deemed "strange."Most items told of encounters between humans and various denizens of the spirit-world, or of the miraculous feats of masters of esoteric arts; some described the wonders of exotic lands, or transmitted fragments of ancient mythology. This genre of writing came to be known as zhiguai ("accounts of anomalies").

Who were the authors of these books, and why did they write of these "strange" matters? Why was such writing seen as a compelling thing to do? In this book, the first comprehensive study in a Western language of the zhiguai genre in its formative period, Campany sets forth a new view of the nature of the genre and the reasons for its emergence. He shows that contemporaries portrayed it as an extension of old royal and imperial traditions in which strange reports from the periphery were collected in the capital as a way of ordering the world. He illuminates how authors writing from most of the religious and cultural perspectives of the times--including Daoists, Buddhists, Confucians, and others--used the genre differently for their own persuasive purposes, in the process fundamentally altering the old traditions of anomaly-collecting. Analyzing the "accounts of anomalies" both in the context of Chinese religious and cultural history and as examples of a cross-culturally attested type of discourse, Campany combines in-depth Sinological research with broad-ranging comparative thinking in his approach to these puzzling, rich texts ... Read more

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An impressive array of scholars opens new windows on the lives of Chinese women during the Middle Ages and discovers topics which are surprisingly modern. The essayists scrutinize mostly male-crafted documents but present the information from the perspectives of the women who lived during the time. ... Read more

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By the end of the sixth century CE, both the royal courts and the educated elite in China were collecting works of art, particularly scrolls of calligraphy and paintings done by known artists. By the time of Emperor Huizong (1082-1135) of the Song dynasty (960-1279), both scholars and the imperial court were cataloguing their collections and also collecting ancient bronzes and rubbings of ancient inscriptions. The catalogues of Huizong's painting, calligraphy, and antiquities collections list over 9,000 items, and the tiny fraction of the listed items that survive today are all important works, among the masterpieces of early Chinese art.

Patricia Ebrey's study of Huizong's collections places them in both political and art historical context. The acts of adding to and cataloguing the imperial collections were political ones, among the strategies that the Song court used to demonstrate its patronage of the culture of the brush, and they need to be seen in the context of contemporary political divisions and controversies. At the same time, court intervention in the art market was both influenced by, and had an impact on, the production, circulation, and imagination of art outside the court.

Accumulating Culture provides a rich context for interpreting the three book-length catalogues of Huizong's collection and specific objects that have survived. It contributes to a rethinking of the cultural side of Chinese imperial rule and of the court as a patron of scholars and the arts, neither glorifying Huizong as a man of the arts nor castigating him as a megalomaniac, but rather taking a hardheaded look at the political and cultural ramifications of collecting and the reasons for choices made by Huizong and his curators. The reader is offered glimpses of the magnificence of the collections he formed and the disparate fates of the objects after they were seized as booty by the Jurchen invaders in 1127.

The heart of the book examines in detail the primary fields of collecting-antiquities, calligraphy, and painting. Chapters devoted to each of these use Huizong's catalogues to reconstruct what was in his collection and to probe choices made by the cataloguers. The acts of inclusion, exclusion, and sequencing that they performed allowed them to influence how people thought of the collection, and to attempt to promote or demote particular artists and styles.

This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Chinese art history, social history, and culture, as well as art collectors. ... Read more

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This book provides an in-depth account of the process of transformation from the curfewed city of the Tang period to the open city of the Song. It analyzes the multi-dimensional factors that gradually led to the development of an urban culture which in turn helped cement the trend towards the open city in China with its irregular layout and distinct urban features. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Thorough book that reads easily
During the Tang Dynasty, Chang'an (present day Xi'an, home of the terracotta warriors) was the largest city in the world. It was also laid out on a vast scale that dwarfed any other city at the time, with extremely broad avenues that divided the citiy into wards. The book explains the physical forms of the city as well as some of the social aspects of living in the city at the time and how they changed over the course of the dynasty. Comparisons are made between other cities nearby. This book is an engaging opportunity to understand urban planning history of a non-western city, something that is lacking in western planning education. I also have a deeper understanding of China's present-day urban layout after having read the book.

If you are interested in Chinese urban history and issues through the ages, I would suggest this book to start you of and then 'Remaking Chinese Urban Form' by Duanfang Lu for a look at the communist era and 'China's Urban Transition' by John Friedmann for a quick look at what is happening now. If you live in China, Professor Heng also has a book with enclosed dvd entitled 'A Digital Reconstruction of Tang Chang'an'--well worth it, in English and Chinese. Steinhardt's 'Chinese Imperial City Planning' is also good, covering more cities and throughout many more time periods, but the cities start to blur together and there is less of a three dimensional and social feel of what the cities were like. ... Read more

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Great little "particle of Light"
In the third century AD a Syro-Persian, Mani, founded a highly evangelistic Gnostic religion in Mesopotamia which was to claim among its converts in the Roman Empire the young Augustine, and which was later to be seen as the inspiration for Paulicians, Bogomils and Cathars in medieval West. It became a world religion with followers spread across Central Asia as far as China it was suppressed as a rebel ideology. Professor Lieu, an international Authority on Manichaeism, presents the first full account of its origins and history, its persecution in the Roman and Chinese Empires and its extraordinary survival in Egypt, North Africa, Central Asia and China, and provides the first English translations of many Greek, Latin, Syriac and Chinese texts. It will appeal to both specialist and general readers in the history of Rome, China and Iran, in theology and comparative religion, and anyone with an interest in the history of contacts between ancient civilisations.


Manichaeism was a third century dualistic religion, founded by Mani, who fused Persian, Christian, and Buddhist elements into a major new faith. It was fought in the West as a virulent Christian heresy. Mani's religion was a complex Gnostic system offering salvation by knowledge. The main features of Manichaeism were enunciated in an elaborate cosmogonical myth of two absolute and eternal principles which manifest themselves in three eras or "moments." The first moment describes a radical dualism in a previous age. Light and darkness (good and evil), personified in the Father of Lights and the Prince of Darkness, were both coeternal and independent. In the middle moment Darkness attacked and became mixed with Light in a precosmic fall of primal man. This resulted in a second creation of the material world and man by the evil powers in which Light is trapped in nature and human bodies. Redemption of Light occurs by a cosmic mechanism in the heavens by which particles of Light (souls) are drawn up and fill the moon for fifteen days. In the last phases of the moon Light is transferred to the sun and finally to Paradise.

Short Passage:
"At death, the soul of the Elect returns direct to the Kingdom of Light and is received with great honour. The soul of the Hearer however, has to remain on earth and by a series of reincarnations in the luminous bodies of fruits and finally in the body of the Elect it too will return to the Kingdom of Light. How soon this final liberation is achieved depends on how devoted the Hearer has been to the service of the Elect. The souls who have not awakened by the Nous are reincarnated in the souls of beasts..."

Lieu is the Best
All of his major books are exceptional reading and extremely informative.They aren't for someone who wants a casual understanding of Manichaeism, but they are never unreadably obtuse or so loaded with jargon as to be incomprehensible. I used them extensively in university and was sad when I had to return them to the library.

The best introduction to Mani and his religion available...period
If you're interested in Late Antique religion of the Roman Empire and Syria, early Christianity, or Manichaeism, you must hunt this book down.It is not only the best introduction to Manichaeism available to date, but every page drips with the astounding erudition and expertise of the author.Thus, it is inspiring academically as well as an invaluable historical reference work.I paid $100 for this book, and, after having read it, I think every penny was well spent. ... Read more

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The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. First published in 1866, this is the two-volume compilation edited by Colonel Henry Yule on contacts with China before the discovery of sea routes to the east. Yule's detailed introductory essay surveys the history of European contacts with the east, beginning with the Greek geographers and going up to the thirteenth century. He then presents the narratives of the Franciscan Odoric of Pordenone and other missionary friars in the fourteenth century. ... Read more

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This volume is a collection of papers presented at the academic conference "Politics and Religion in Ancient and Medieval Europe and Asia" organized by the Department of History and New Asia College of The Chinese University of Hong Kong in March 1996. Although the papers vary widely in the region and time-span of coverage-from ancient Egypt, the early Roman Empire, Norman England, to medieval China, they are joined by their concern about the relationship between politics and different religions-Christianity, Buddhism, Daoism and others-in ancient and medieval Europe and Asia and the respective intellectual and cultural interactions.

Seven papers, all written by ancient and medieval historians, are collected in this volume. Professor Mu-chou Poo in his paper explores the ancient Egyptian attitudes toward foreigners and foreign culture as an effort to understand Egyptian culture from a new perspective, and as a preliminary attempt to probe into the issues concerning the nature of ancient ethnicity and cultural consciousness. Professor Yen-zen Tsai's paper looks into the way the early Roman Empire treated mystery cults under its rule. Professor Ming-chiu Lai discusses the impact of a Buddhist ritual on Chinese religious culture between the second and sixth centuries. Professor Chi-tim Lai in his paper argues that some Daoist teachings advocated a new world order, but they were not the real force that provoked the rebellions during the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Professor Puay-peng Ho exhibits the political meanings of the imperial buildings in the Tang period and sheds light on the research about legitimacy in medieval China. Professor Warren Hollister's paper, which is also the keynote speech, points out that the high culture of twelfth century western Europe was largely the product of monastery. Finally, Professor Frederick Hok-ming Cheung examines the role of the Church in Anglo-Norman politics.

It is hoped that the book will furnish a basis for further investigation on politics and religion in the ancient and medieval world, and inspire scholarly inquiries into the comparative dimensions of these important historical phenomena. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

In Tribute
This biography was written to honor the memory of Sir/Dr. Kai Ho Kai of Hong Kong. It has been prodigiously researched and offers a detailed picture of political life/activity in Hong Kong in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dr. Ho Kai never practiced medicine but instead went into law. The Alice Memorial Hospital in HK is named for his first wife, an Englishwoman. Given the times in which Dr. Kai Ho Kai lived, when HK was a British colony,when there were clear class and racial distinctions, I wish the author had explored more fully--if that were possible--the feelings of his subject.His interracial marriage in itself was unique.On the mainland China was attempting to regain sovereignty over its own affairs. I felt a sense of Dr. Kai Ho Kai's accomplishments but not of the man himself. I admire the author for bringing him to our attention. ... Read more

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4 Vols Set, Dimensions: 22.5x14.2x12 cm. ... Read more

Product Description
The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. This volume, first published in 1866, is the first of two compilations edited by Colonel Henry Yule on contacts with China before the discovery of sea routes to the east. Yule's detailed introductory essay surveys the history of European contacts with the east, beginning with the Greek geographers and going up to the thirteenth century. He then presents the narratives of the Franciscan Odoric of Pordenone and other missionary friars in the fourteenth century. ... Read more

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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. ... Read more

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Marco Polo’s famous book about his journey to China, written in 1298, continues to be a subject of considerable controversy. One recent work on the subject argues that Marco Polo never went to China at all, and other scholars have pointed out apparent mistakes and important omissions in Marco’s writings, including his failure to mention the Great Wall, and his apparently erroneous description of the course of the Yellow River.

Haw re-examines Marco Polo’s writings. The main arguments against his credibility have been negative, concentrating on things that it is argued he should have seen and noted but did not. The most serious of these supposed omissions are generally said to be his failure to describe the Chinese writing system, tea, foot-binding and the Great Wall of China. Yet Haw argues that what he does mention is impressive and argues strongly for his veracity. This book clarifies Marco Polo’s itineraries in China and proposes several new identifications of places mentioned.

Relying extensively on original Chinese sources and supplemented by Haw’s wide knowledge of China, Marco Polo’s China presents a convincing argument and concludes that his work is an accurate, important and useful source from an extraordinary period of Chinese history.