3000 years of Chinese history presented through the lives of ninety-six illustrious participants from all periods and all parts of the country China is the most populous country on earth, with the longest history of any modern nation. Here, the full range of Chinese cultural and scientific achievements, as well as its military conquests, wars, rebellions, and political and philosophical movements, are told through the eyes of real people who created or were involved in them. The subjects include emperors and empresses, concubines, officials and political figures, rebels, exiles, philosophers, writers and poets, artists, musicians, scientists, military leaders, and committed pacifists. From Fu Hao, an early warrior lady of the thirteenth century BC, to the late twentieth-century leader Deng Xiaoping, their careers, achievements, misdeeds, disasters, punishments, ideas and love stories make this an unforgettable read. Illustrated with portraits, paintings, written documents, bronzes, sculptures, and location maps, and written in an authoritative yet accessible style, Chinese Lives provides the perfect introduction to China’s history and her peoples.
3000 years of Chinese history presented through the lives of ninety-six illustrious participants from all periods and all parts of the country China is the most populous country on earth, with the longest history of any modern nation. Here, the full range of Chinese cultural and scientific achievements, as well as its military conquests, wars, rebellions, and political and philosophical movements, are told through the eyes of real people who created or were involved in them. The subjects include emperors and empresses, concubines, officials and political figures, rebels, exiles, philosophers, writers and poets, artists, musicians, scientists, military leaders, and committed pacifists. From Fu Hao, an early warrior lady of the thirteenth century BC, to the late twentieth-century leader Deng Xiaoping, their careers, achievements, misdeeds, disasters, punishments, ideas and love stories make this an unforgettable read. Illustrated with portraits, paintings, written documents, bronzes, sculptures, and location maps, and written in an authoritative yet accessible style, Chinese Lives provides the perfect introduction to China’s history and her peoples.
In contrast to the economic and cultural dominance by the south and the east coast over the past several centuries, influence in China in the early Middle Ages was centered in the north and featured a significantly multicultural society. Many events that were profoundly formative for the future of East Asian civilization occurred during this period, although much of this multiculturalism has long been obscured due to the Confucian monopoly of written records. Multicultural China in the Early Middle Ages endeavors to expose a number of long-hidden non-Sinitic characteristics and manifestations of heritage, some lasting to this very day. Sanping Chen investigates several foundational aspects of Chinese culture during this period, including the legendary unicorn and the fabled heroine Mulan, to determine the origin and development of the lore. His meticulous research yields surprising results. For instance, he finds that the character Mulan is not of Chinese origin and that Central Asian influences are to be found in language, religion, governance, and other fundamental characteristics of Chinese culture. As Victor Mair writes in the Foreword, "While not everyone will acquiesce in the entirety of Dr. Chen's findings, no reputable scholar can afford to ignore them with impunity." These "foreign"-origin elements were largely the legacy of the Tuoba, whose descendants in fact dominated China's political and cultural stage for nearly a millennium. Long before the Mongols, the Tuoba set a precedent for "using the civilized to rule the civilized" by attracting a large number of sedentary Central Asians to East Asia. This not only added a strong pre-Islamic Iranian layer to the contemporary Sinitic culture but also commenced China's golden age under the cosmopolitan Tang dynasty, whose nominally "Chinese" ruling house is revealed by Chen to be the biological and cultural heir of the Tuoba.
This fully illustrated book tells the story of China through 96 short biographies. Expert authors have drawn on a huge range of sources to assemble information about the widest possible range of individuals from all periods and parts of China, from an early warrior lady of the 13th century BC, Fu Hao, to the late-20th-century Communist leader Deng Xiaoping. We see the range of Chinese cultural and scientific achievements, as well as its military conquests, wars, rebellions and political and philosophical movements, through the eyes of real people who created or were caught up by them. This colourful array of men and women includes emperors and empresses, officials and political figures, rebels, exiles, philosophers, writers and poets, artists, musicians, scientists, military leaders and committed pacifists. Their careers, achievements, misdeeds, disasters, punishments, ideas and love stories make this an unforgettable read. China is the most populous country on earth, with the longest history of any modern nation. It is clear that Chinas future as a political and economic world power will be as significant as its past, and its achievements still depend upon its people.
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