Something of The Book

PDF EPUB Library of e-Books

Honor and Shame in Early China

2020-12-10
Honor and Shame in Early China

Author: Mark Edward Lewis

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

ISBN: 9781108843690

Category: History

Page: 265

View: 479

Download BOOK »
Lewis sheds new light on the early Chinese empires through an ambitious examination of evolving ideas about honor and shame.

Honor and Shame in Early China

2020-12-10
Honor and Shame in Early China

Author: Mark Edward Lewis

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

ISBN: 9781108911603

Category: History

Page:

View: 241

Download BOOK »
In this major new study, Mark Edward Lewis traces how the changing language of honor and shame helped to articulate and justify transformations in Chinese society between the Warring States and the end of the Han dynasty. Through careful examination of a wide variety of texts, he demonstrates how honor-shame discourse justified the actions of diverse and potentially rival groups. Over centuries, the formally recognized political order came to be intertwined with groups articulating alternative models of honor. These groups both participated in the existing order and, through their own visions of what was truly honourable, paved the way for subsequent political structures. Filling a major lacuna in the study of early China, Lewis presents ways in which the early Chinese empires can be fruitfully considered in comparative context and develops a more systematic understanding of the fundamental role of honor/shame in shaping states and societies.

The Oxford World History of Empire

2020-12-02
The Oxford World History of Empire

Author: Peter Fibiger Bang

Publisher: Oxford University Press

ISBN: 9780197532782

Category: History

Page: 1449

View: 913

Download BOOK »
This is the first world history of empire, reaching from the third millennium BCE to the present. By combining synthetic surveys, thematic comparative essays, and numerous chapters on specific empires, its two volumes provide unparalleled coverage of imperialism throughout history and across continents, from Asia to Europe and from Africa to the Americas. Only a few decades ago empire was believed to be a thing of the past; now it is clear that it has been and remains one of the most enduring forms of political organization and power. We cannot understand the dynamics and resilience of empire without moving decisively beyond the study of individual cases or particular periods, such as the relatively short age of European colonialism. The history of empire, as these volumes amply demonstrate, needs to be drawn on the much broader canvas of global history. Volume Two: The History of Empires tracks the protean history of political domination from the very beginnings of state formation in the Bronze Age up to the present. Case studies deal with the full range of the historical experience of empire, from the realms of the Achaemenids and Asoka to the empires of Mali and Songhay, and from ancient Rome and China to the Mughals, American settler colonialism, and the Soviet Union. Forty-five chapters detailing the history of individual empires are tied together by a set of global synthesizing surveys that structure the world history of empire into eight chronological phases.

Shame

2017-09-11
Shame

Author: Peter N. Stearns

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

ISBN: 9780252050008

Category: History

Page: 192

View: 374

Download BOOK »
Shame varies as an individual experience and its manifestations across time and cultures. Groups establish identity and enforce social behaviors through shame and shaming, while attempts at shaming often provoke a social or political backlash. Yet historians often neglect shame 's power to complicate individual, international, cultural, and political relationships. Peter N. Stearns draws on his long career as a historian of emotions to provide the foundational text on shame 's history and how this history contributes to contemporary issues around the emotion. Summarizing current research, Stearns unpacks the major debates that surround this complex emotion. He also surveys the changing role of shame in the United States from the nineteenth century to today, including shame 's revival as a force in the 1960s and its place in today 's social media. Looking ahead, Stearns maps the abundant opportunities for future historical research and historically informed interdisciplinary scholarship. Written for interested readers and scholars alike, Shame combines significant new research with a wider synthesis.

Keywords in Chinese Culture

2019-12-15
Keywords in Chinese Culture

Author: Li Wai-yee

Publisher: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press

ISBN: 9789882371194

Category: Literary Collections

Page: 360

View: 164

Download BOOK »
Like every major culture, Chinese has its set of keywords: pivotal terms of political, ethical, literary and philosophical discourse. Tracing the origins, development, polysemy, and usages of keywords is one of the best ways to chart cultural and historical changes. This volume analyzes some of these keywords from different disciplinary and temporal perspectives, offering a new integrative study of their semantic richness, development trajectory, and distinct usages in Chinese culture. The authors of the volume explore different keywords and focus on different periods and genres, ranging from philosophical and historical texts of the Warring States period (453-V221 BCE) to late imperial (ca. 6th?V18th centuries CE) literature and philosophy. They are guided by a similar set of questions: What elevates a mere word to the status of keyword? What sort of resonance and reverberations do we expect a keyword to have? How much does the semantic range of a keyword explain its significance? What kinds of arguments does it generate? What are the stories told to illustrate its meanings? What are political and intellectual implications of the keyword's reevaluation? What does it mean to translate a keyword and map its meaning against other languages? Throughout Chinese history, new ideas and new approaches often mean reinterpreting important words; rupture, continuities, and inflection points are inseparable from the linguistic history of specific terms. The premise of this book is that taking the long view and encompassing different disciplines yield new insights and unexpected connections. The authors, who come from the fields of history,

Sanctioned Violence in Early China

1990-01-01
Sanctioned Violence in Early China

Author: Mark Edward Lewis

Publisher: SUNY Press

ISBN: 079140076X

Category: History

Page: 392

View: 905

Download BOOK »
This book provides new insight into the creation of the Chinese empire by examining the changing forms of permitted violence--warfare, hunting, sacrifice, punishments, and vengeance. It analyzes the interlinked evolution of these violent practices to reveal changes in the nature of political authority, in the basic units of social organization, and in the fundamental commitments of the ruling elite. The work offers a new interpretation of the changes that underlay the transformation of the Chinese polity from a league of city states dominated by aristocratic lineages to a unified, territorial state controlled by a supreme autocrat and his agents. In addition, it shows how a new pattern of violence was rationalized and how the Chinese of the period incorporated their ideas about violence into the myths and proto-scientific theories that provided historical and natural prototypes for the imperial state.

Violence and the Rise of Centralized States in East Asia

2021-10-31
Violence and the Rise of Centralized States in East Asia

Author: Mark Edward Lewis

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

ISBN: 9781108982986

Category: History

Page:

View: 778

Download BOOK »
Violence, both physical and nonphysical, is central to any society, but it is a version of the problem that it claims to solve. This Element examines how states in ancient East Asia, from the late Shang through the end of the Han dynasty, wielded violence to create and display authority, and also how their licit violence was entangled in the 'savage' or 'criminal' violence whose suppression justified their power. The East Asian cases are supplemented through citing comparable Western ones. The themes examined include the emergence of the warrior as a human type, the overlap of hunts and combat (and the overlap between treatments of alien species and alien peoples), sacrifice of both alien captives and 'death attendants' from one's own groups, the impact of military specialization and the increased scale of armies, the emergent ideal of self-sacrifice, and the diverse aspects of violence in the regime of law.

Masculinities in Chinese History

2013-08-30
Masculinities in Chinese History

Author: Bret Hinsch

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN: 9781442222359

Category: History

Page: 208

View: 356

Download BOOK »
Masculinities in Chinese History is the first historical survey of the many ways men have acted, thought, and behaved throughout China’s long past. Bret Hinsch introduces readers to the basic characteristics of historical Chinese masculinity while highlighting the dynamic changes in male identity over the centuries. He covers the full span of Chinese history, from the Zhou dynasty in distant antiquity up to the current era of disorienting rapid change. The author concludes by exploring how capitalism, imperialism, modernization, revolution, and reform have rapidly transformed ideas about what it means to be a man in contemporary China.

Language, Discourse, and Praxis in Ancient China

2014-09-10
Language, Discourse, and Praxis in Ancient China

Author: Zhenbin Sun

Publisher: Springer

ISBN: 9783642548659

Category: Philosophy

Page: 167

View: 142

Download BOOK »
This book investigates Chinese comprehension and treatment of the relationship between language and reality. The work examines ancient Chinese philosophy through the pair of concepts known as ming-shi. By analyzing the pre-Qin thinkers’ discourse on ming and shi, the work explores how Chinese philosophers dealt with issues not only in language but also in ontology, epistemology, ethics, axiology, and logic. Through this discourse analysis, readers are invited to rethink the relationship of language to thought and behavior. The author criticizes and corrects vital misunderstandings of Chinese culture and highlights the anti-dualism and pragmatic character of Chinese thoughts. The rich meaning of the ming-shi pair is displayed by revealing its connection to other philosophical issues. The chapters show how discourse on language and reality shapes a central characteristic of Chinese culture, the practical zhi. They illuminate the interplay of Chinese theories of language and Dao as Chinese wisdom and worldview. Readers who are familiar with pragmatics and postmodernism will recognize the common points in ancient Chinese philosophy and contemporary Western philosophy, as they emerge through these chapters. The work will particularly appeal to scholars of philosophy, philosophy of language, communication studies and linguistics.

Women in Imperial China

2016-09-22
Women in Imperial China

Author: Bret Hinsch

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

ISBN: 9781442271661

Category: History

Page: 273

View: 104

Download BOOK »
This accessible text offers a comprehensive survey of women’s history in China from the Neolithic period through the end of the Qing dynasty in the early twentieth century. Rather than providing an exhaustive chronicle of this vast subject, Bret Hinsch pinpoints the themes that characterized distinct periods in Chinese women’s history and delves into the perception of female identity in each era. Moving beyond the traditional focus on the late imperial era, Hinsch explores how gender relations have developed and changed since ancient times. His chronological look at the most important female roles in every major dynasty showcases not only the constraints women faced but also their vast accomplishments throughout the millennia. Hinsch’s extensive use of Chinese-language scholarship lends his book a fresh perspective rare among Western scholars. Professors and students will find this an invaluable textbook for Chinese women’s studies and an excellent supplement for courses in gender studies and Chinese history.

Women in Early Medieval China

2018-10-05
Women in Early Medieval China

Author: Bret Hinsch

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

ISBN: 9781538117972

Category: History

Page: 234

View: 862

Download BOOK »
This important study provides the only comprehensive survey of Chinese women during the early medieval period of disunion known as the Six Dynasties, which lasted from the fall of the Eastern Han dynasty in AD 220 to the reunification of China by the Sui dynasty in AD 581.