The History Book Club discussion

This is a thread which can be used to discuss any of the Chinese Dynasties. Feel free to discuss any of these on this thread. We will set up a thread per dynasty soon.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynastie...

What do you mean when you say dynasty?



First, you often mean a ruling house; you mean physically an empire. For example the Ming Dynasty which was from 1368 to 1644 CE - Zhu Yuanzhang - 1328 - 1398 was the Hongwu Emperor and the founder and first Emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

You also mean the rule of an imperial family - in the example of the Ming Dynasty - the Zhu Family.

You mean a great hierarchy of inner and outer courttemporallimit. That is, a dynasty may be long or may be short. But as it turns out, none has lasted forever.

Dynasties have their beginning points - always as military conquests.

They have their high points, which are sometimes called a shengshi, a prosperous age, from which, sadly, once you're at the high point, everything else is downhill.

A dynasty then is the name of a country, it lasts for a certain period of time.

The name of the country matters - for example Qing is not the same as Ming. So you would have said that this is the great state of Ming, or the great country of Ming, or the great country of Qing as they were called.

Each dynasty is the contiguous rule of a royal family or an imperial family that passes the rulership on within itself. It is the territory it controls and it is the whole government that runs that territory. And it is very important to know which dynasty comes before which.

You should be less concerned with the dates of the dynasties versus their chronological order - or the sequence of dynasties

There is a song to learn the dynasties - it goes like this:

Shang Zhou Qin Han, Shang Zhou Qin Han, Sui Tang Song, Sui Tang - Song, Yuan Ming Qing Republic, Yuan Ming Qing Republic,
Mao Zedong, Mao Zedong...]

ChinaX | How to Memorize China's Major Dynasties

Link: https://youtu.be/xJis9TSw1rE

Source - ChinaX course - Harvard

Here is some information on the Dynastic Cycle:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynastic...

Do you want to include or omit the Yuan Dynasty since it is not, strictly speaking, Chinese?

Let us include it since some folks consider both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an imperial dynasty of China.

The Samurai Invasion of Korea 1592-98

by Stephen Turnbull (no photo)

Synopsis:

The invasions of Korea launched by the dictator Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1592-1593 and 1597-1598) are unique in Japanese history for being the only time that the samurai assaulted a foreign country. Hideyoshi planned to invade and conquer China, ruled at the time by the Ming dynasty, and when the Korean court refused to allow his troops to cross their country, Korea became the first step in this ambitious plan of conquest. In 1592 a huge invasion force of 150,000 men landed at the ports of Busan and Tadaejin under the commanders Konishi Yukinaga and Kato Kiyomasa. These two Japanese divisions rapidly overran their Korean counterparts, taking the principal cities of Seoul and then Pyongyang and driving the remnants of the Korean Army into China. The Japanese division under Kato Kiyomasa even started to advance into Manchuria. However, the Korean strength was in their navy and the vital Korean naval victory of Hansando disrupted the flow of supplies to the invasion forces, forcing them to hold their positions around Pyongyang.

In 1593, the Chinese invaded capturing Pyongyang from the Japanese and driving them southwards. This phase of the war ended in a truce, with the Japanese forces withdrawing into enclaves around the southern port of Busan while the Ming armies largely withdrew to China.

In 1597, following the breakdown in negotiations, the Japanese invaded again with a force of 140,000 men. However, the Chinese and Koreans were now better prepared and the advance came to a halt south of Seoul, and then forced the Japanese southwards. In November 1598 Hideyoshi died, and with him the enthusiasm for the military adventure. The Japanese council of regents ordered the withdrawal of the remaining forces, and the naval battle of Noryang, which saw the Japanese fleet annihilated by the Korean admiral Yi-Sunshin, proved to be the last significant act of the conflict.

The golden age of China was represented by the T'ang dynasty. This is a well researched book which covers all aspects of the influence of the rulers of this house.

China's Cosmopolitan Empire: The Tang Dynasty

by Mark Edward Lewis (no photo)

Synopsis:

The Tang dynasty is often called China's "golden age," a period of commercial, religious, and cultural connections from Korea and Japan to the Persian Gulf, and a time of unsurpassed literary creativity. Mark Lewis captures a dynamic era in which the empire reached its greatest geographical extent under Chinese rule, painting and ceramic arts flourished, women played a major role both as rulers and in the economy, and China produced its finest lyric poets in Wang Wei, Li Bo, and Du Fu.

The Chinese engaged in extensive trade on sea and land. Merchants from Inner Asia settled in the capital, while Chinese entrepreneurs set off for the wider world, the beginning of a global diaspora. The emergence of an economically and culturally dominant south that was controlled from a northern capital set a pattern for the rest of Chinese imperial history. Poems celebrated the glories of the capital, meditated on individual loneliness in its midst, and described heroic young men and beautiful women who filled city streets and bars.

Despite the romantic aura attached to the Tang, it was not a time of unending peace. In 756, General An Lushan led a revolt that shook the country to its core, weakening the government to such a degree that by the early tenth century, regional warlordism gripped many areas, heralding the decline of the Great Tang.

Eunuchs were commonplace in the Chinese dynasties and were known to be at the center of the political behind the scenes machinations of the court. This is the first volume of a two volume set which covers the lives of some of the most powerful eunuchs at court.

Chinese Eunuchs

(no image) Chinese Eunuchs Book One by Tian Hengyu (no photo)

Synopsis:

Chinese Eunuchs Book 1 is the first volume in a series that tells the stories of fifteen infamous eunuchs in Chinese history. Every story is about a real man and real events. See how they conspired and manipulated the emperors and empresses they served. Their misdoings were so disastrous that in some cases, they bought about the downfall of an entire dynasty. Stories of powerful eunuchs like Shu Diao and Zhao Gao making their way into high positions and manipulating the Chinese courts, are brought to life in these well-illustrated pages of intriguing but authentic testimonies.

Thank you Jill

The castrati of China........poor devils.

The author looks at everyday life during the T'ang dynasty as well as the rise and fall of that dynasty.

China's Golden Age

by Charles Benn(no photo)

Synopsis:

The Tang Dynasty (618-907), traditionally regarded as the golden age of China, was a time of patricians and intellectuals, Buddhist monks and Taoist priests, poetry and music, song and dance. In China's Golden Age: Everyday Life in the Tang Dynasty, Charles Benn paints a vivid picture of the lifestyle behind the grandeur of the Tang culture.
All aspects of day-to-day life are presented, including crime,entertainment, fashion, marriage, food, hygiene, dwellings, and transportation. Attend an ancient feast to celebrate an imperial birthday, where ale was served in elaborate pitchers before a meal of fourteen hors d'oeuvres and twenty-three courses. Learn which colors concubines used for their eye makeup and beauty marks, and what jealous wives did to discourage such enhancement. See the similarities between today's pubs and the Tang alehouses, where women were hired to dance and sing to encourage patrons to stay longer and spend more money. Decide for yourself why Yangzhou, a city on the Grand Canal close to the Yangtze River, was considered one of the greatest cities in the Tang Dynasty.
Benn translates and paraphrases his classical Chinese sources from the Tang era with fresh and polished prose. He also includes his own illustrations of everything from tools and hairstyles to musical instruments and courtyard dwellings. A history of the rise and fall of the dynasty is presented, as is a look at the societal structure of the aristocracy, bureaucracy, eunuchs, clergy, peasants, artisans, merchants, and slaves. This thorough explanation provides fascinating insight into a culture and time that is often misunderstood by Westerners and brings alive both the everyday routine and the timeless splendor of this intellectually and artistically powerful epoch. Enjoy your journey in China's Golden Age, and come back to the present with a greater understanding of this amazing time.

The Military Collapse of China's Ming Dynasty

by Kenneth M Swope (no photo)

Synopsis:

This book examines the military collapse of China s Ming Dynasty to a combination of foreign and domestic foes. The Ming's defeat was a highly surprising development, not least because as recently as in the 1590s the Ming had managed to defeat a Japanese force considered to be perhaps the most formidable of its day when the latter attempted to subjugate Korea en-route to a planned invasion of China. In contrast to conventional explanations for the Ming s collapse, which focus upon political and socio-economic factors, this book shows how the military collapse of the Ming state was intimately connected to the deterioration of the personal relationship between the Ming throne and the military establishment that had served as the cornerstone of the Ming military renaissance of the previous decades. Moreover, it examines the broader process of the militarization of late Ming society as a whole to arrive at an understanding of how a state with such tremendous military resources and potential could be defeated by numerically and technologically inferior foes. It concludes with a consideration of the fall of the Ming in light of contemporary conflicts and regime changes around the globe, drawing attention to climatological factors and developments outside state control. Utilizing recently released archival materials, this book adds a much needed piece to the puzzle of the collapse of the Ming Dynasty in China.

A fascinating look at the dynasties of China up until the time of Communism.

The Dynasties of China: A History

by Bamber Gascoigne (no photo)

Synopsis:

Shang, Chou, Han, T'ang, Sung, Yuan, Ming, Ch'ing — for most Westerners, they stand only as adjectives to describe a lacquer, a bronze, a silk, a watercolor. And for all the familiarity a blue and white porcelain vase from the Ming dynasty or the bright and sturdy pottery figures of horses and grooms from the T'ang may now have acquired, the history of the civilization that produced them remains obscure. So do the names of the potters and artists and philosophers and emperors and generals — except perhaps for those of Kublai Khan, who was not Chinese, and K'ung Fu Tzu — known as Confucius — who flourished a century before Socrates. Focusing upon the incidents and personalities that epitomize most vividly each of the dynasties, this lucidly narrated volume, beautifully illustrated by a lavish selection of color photographs, places in their historical context the images that came to define imperial China from its origins in 1600 B.C. to the revolution of Sun Yat-sen in October 1911. It provides a background to China's turbulent twentieth century, which is surveyed in an informative postscript, highlighting such events as the troubled presidency of Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Tse-tung's ruthless Cultural Revolution, and the 1989 student protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han

by Mark Edward Lewis (no photo)

Synopsis:

In 221 bc the First Emperor of Qin unified the lands that would become the heart of a Chinese empire. Though forged by conquest, this vast domain depended for its political survival on a fundamental reshaping of Chinese culture. With this informative book, we are present at the creation of an ancient imperial order whose major features would endure for two millennia.

The Qin and Han constitute the "classical period" of Chinese history--a role played by the Greeks and Romans in the West. Mark Edward Lewis highlights the key challenges faced by the court officials and scholars who set about governing an empire of such scale and diversity of peoples. He traces the drastic measures taken to transcend, without eliminating, these regional differences: the invention of the emperor as the divine embodiment of the state; the establishment of a common script for communication and a state-sponsored canon for the propagation of Confucian ideals; the flourishing of the great families, whose domination of local society rested on wealth, landholding, and elaborate kinship structures; the demilitarization of the interior; and the impact of non-Chinese warrior-nomads in setting the boundaries of an emerging Chinese identity.

The first of a six-volume series on the history of imperial China, The Early Chinese Empires illuminates many formative events in China's long history of imperialism--events whose residual influence can still be discerned today.

China Between Empires: The Northern and Southern Dynasties

by Mark Edward Lewis (no photo)

Synopsis:

After the collapse of the Han dynasty in the third century CE, China divided along a north-south line. Mark Lewis traces the changes that both underlay and resulted from this split in a period that saw the geographic redefinition of China, more engagement with the outside world, significant changes to family life, developments in the literary and social arenas, and the introduction of new religions.

The Yangzi River valley arose as the rice-producing center of the country. Literature moved beyond the court and capital to depict local culture, and newly emerging social spaces included the garden, temple, salon, and country villa. The growth of self-defined genteel families expanded the notion of the elite, moving it away from the traditional great Han families identified mostly by material wealth. Trailing the rebel movements that toppled the Han, the new faiths of Daoism and Buddhism altered every aspect of life, including the state, kinship structures, and the economy.

By the time China was reunited by the Sui dynasty in 589 ce, the elite had been drawn into the state order, and imperial power had assumed a more transcendent nature. The Chinese were incorporated into a new world system in which they exchanged goods and ideas with states that shared a common Buddhist religion. The centuries between the Han and the Tang thus had a profound and permanent impact on the Chinese world.

The Age of Confucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China

by Dieter Kuhn (no photo)

Synopsis:

Just over a thousand years ago, the Song dynasty emerged as the most advanced civilization on earth. Within two centuries, China was home to nearly half of all humankind. In this concise history, we learn why the inventiveness of this era has been favorably compared with the European Renaissance, which in many ways the Song transformation surpassed.

With the chaotic dissolution of the Tang dynasty, the old aristocratic families vanished. A new class of scholar-officials products of a meritocratic examination system took up the task of reshaping Chinese tradition by adapting the precepts of Confucianism to a rapidly changing world. Through fiscal reforms, these elites liberalized the economy, eased the tax burden, and put paper money into circulation. Their redesigned capitals buzzed with traders, while the education system offered advancement to talented men of modest means. Their rationalist approach led to inventions in printing, shipbuilding, weaving, ceramics manufacture, mining, and agriculture. With a realist s eye, they studied the natural world and applied their observations in art and science. And with the souls of diplomats, they chose peace over war with the aggressors on their borders. Yet persistent military threats from these nomadic tribes which the Chinese scorned as their cultural inferiors redefined China s understanding of its place in the world and solidified a sense of what it meant to be Chinese.

The Age of Confucian Rule is an essential introduction to this transformative era.

The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties

by Timothy Brook (no photo)

Synopsis:

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.

China's Last Empire: The Great Qing

by William T. Rowe (no photo)

Synopsis:

In a brisk revisionist history, William Rowe challenges the standard narrative of Qing China as a decadent, inward-looking state that failed to keep pace with the modern West.

The Great Qing was the second major Chinese empire ruled by foreigners. Three strong Manchu emperors worked diligently to secure an alliance with the conquered Ming gentry, though many of their social edicts--especially the requirement that ethnic Han men wear queues--were fiercely resisted. As advocates of a "universal" empire, Qing rulers also achieved an enormous expansion of the Chinese realm over the course of three centuries, including the conquest and incorporation of Turkic and Tibetan peoples in the west, vast migration into the southwest, and the colonization of Taiwan.

Despite this geographic range and the accompanying social and economic complexity, the Qing ideal of "small government" worked well when outside threats were minimal. But the nineteenth-century Opium Wars forced China to become a player in a predatory international contest involving Western powers, while the devastating uprisings of the Taiping and Boxer rebellions signaled an urgent need for internal reform. Comprehensive state-mandated changes during the early twentieth century were not enough to hold back the nationalist tide of 1911, but they provided a new foundation for the Republican and Communist states that would follow.

This original, thought-provoking history of China's last empire is a must-read for understanding the challenges facing China today.

Good recommendations, Jerome.

Thank you for the adds Jerome.

T'ang China: The Rise of the East in World History

by Samuel Adrian M. Adshead (no photo)

Synopsis:

China's role in world history has been controversial, especially as seen through an economic lens. This book presents an alternative interpretation of that role, less exclusively economic, more broadly based, and focused on the T'ang period, one of China's acknowledged golden ages. It shows how a different China, Buddhist or Taoist rather than Confucian, aristocratic as much as meritocratic, achieved, through openness to the outside world and partnership with its elites, a multiple preeminence in politics, economics, society and the intellect, not unlike that enjoyed by the United States today. Within a looser web of globalization, the T'ang period and its dynamics offers a distant mirror of our own time, casting a new light on issues in contemporary politics.

China's Southern Tang Dynasty, 937-976

by Johannes L. Kurz (no photo)

Synopsis:

The Southern Tang was one of China’s minor dynasties and one of the great states in China in the tenth century. Although often regarded as one of several states preceding the much better known Song dynasty (960-1279), the Southern Tang dynasty was in fact the key state in this period, preserving cultural values and artefacts from the former great Tang dynasty (618-907) which were to form the basis of Song rule, and thereby presenting the Song with a direct link to the Tang and it traditions.

Drawing mainly on primary Chinese sources, this is the first book in English to provide a comprehensive overview of the Southern Tang, and full coverage of military, cultural and political history in the period. It focuses on a successful, albeit short-lived, attempt to set up an independent regional state in the modern provinces of Jiangxi and Jiangsu, and establishes the Southern Tang dynasty in its own right. It follows the rise of the Southern Tang state to become the predominant claimant of the Tang heritage and the expansionist policies of the second ruler culminating in the occupation and annexation of the two of the Southern Tang’s neighbours, Min (Fujian) and Chu (Hunan). Finally the narrative describes the decline of the dynasty under its last ruler, the famous poet Li Yu, and its ultimate surrender to the Song dynasty.

Records of the Grand Historian: Han Dynasty

by Sima Qian

Synopsis

Sima Qian (145?-90? BCE) was the first major Chinese historian. His Shiji, or Records of the Grand Historian, documents the history of China and its neighboring countries from the ancient past to his own time. These three volumes cover the Qin and Han dynasties.

Jill wrote: "Records of the Grand Historian: Han Dynasty



I've been looking around for an English translation of that, complete if possible, and drawn a blank. This seems a decent place to ask - does anyone know of one or, failing that, know what is the best/fullest option as things stand?

@Brendan.....the book that I cited in post#22 is an English edition, published by Columbia Press.

Jill wrote: "@Brendan.....the book that I cited in post#22 is an English edition, published by Columbia Press."

Thanks, but it's only a small part of the whole, isn't it? Even those three volumes.

To be honest, Brendan,I am not sure. I thought it was the complete work but it may not be.

It's just a part. But thanks anyway - if I find anything better I'll drop back in and let you know.

Thanks so much.

It seems that I continually find China's history fascinating - I'll put this on my yo read list, Thanks

Me too, Barbara; I know little about the country, but I want to learn more!

This book provides an overview of all the Chinese dynasties. An excellent reference for the beginning Chinese scholar.

The Dynasties of China

by Bamber Gascoigne(no photo)

Synopsis:

Shang, Chou, Han, T'ang, Sung, Yuan, Ming, Ch'ing — for most Westerners, they stand only as adjectives to describe a lacquer, a bronze, a silk, a watercolor. And for all the familiarity a blue and white porcelain vase from the Ming dynasty or the bright and sturdy pottery figures of horses and grooms from the T'ang may now have acquired, the history of the civilization that produced them remains obscure. So do the names of the potters and artists and philosophers and emperors and generals — except perhaps for those of Kublai Khan, who was not Chinese, and K'ung Fu Tzu — known as Confucius — who flourished a century before Socrates. Focusing upon the incidents and personalities that epitomize most vividly each of the dynasties, this lucidly narrated volume, beautifully illustrated by a lavish selection of color photographs, places in their historical context the images that came to define imperial China from its origins in 1600 B.C. to the revolution of Sun Yat-sen in October 1911. It provides a background to China's turbulent twentieth century, which is surveyed in an informative postscript, highlighting such events as the troubled presidency of Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Tse-tung's ruthless Cultural Revolution, and the 1989 student protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Jill wrote: "This book provides an overview of all the Chinese dynasties. An excellent reference for the beginning Chinese scholar.

The Dynasties of China

..."

The Qin are missing here, which is strange given the importance of Qin Shi Huang as the first Chinese Emperor and his unification of the country. The Jin, the Sui and the Qing are also also lacking in the description.

I am wondering if the GR description is just giving a few of the dynasties as an example rather than listing them all. That may be the reason that some were left out.

Almost through reading a book on the dynasties and life in China up to around 1900. At first it was slow read but it drew me in and it's really a fantastic book. It's well worth checking out especially as it was a free download. A History of China by Wolfram Eberhard(no photo).

Thanks Doreen. Go ahead and put that citation at the end with a space. It looks a little crowded. Thanks :-). Have a great new year, by the way.

This book looks a bit dense but might be very enlightening.

Ordering the World: Approaches to State and Society in Sung Dynasty China

by Robert Hymes(no photo)

Synopsis:

These essays examine the relation of society and the state or, more broadly, the place of political action in society and in the history of Sung China. Connections between intellectual change and sociopolitical change are a consistent focus; attitudes toward history and problems of authority are a recurrent concern. The authors suggest new kinds of continuity between the disparate intellectual worlds of Northern and Southern Sung China. Their findings have important implications for our understanding of the neo-Confucian movement in Sung history and of the Sung in the history of Chinese ideas about politics and social action.

Soldiers of the Dragon: Chinese Armies 1500 BC–AD 1840

by C.J. Peers(no photo)

Synopsis:

The turbulent history of China has seen many dynastic struggles over the centuries, ever since the semi-nomadic tribes of ancient China were unified under the first emperor, Cheng. From the Great Wall to the terracotta army at Xian, monuments to China's many wars, and the men who fought them, litter the landscape. This book tells the incredible story of China's armies form the first documented civilization over 3,000 years ago to the outbreak of the first Opium War with Britain in the middle of the 19th century. Written by an acknowledged expert on Chinese armies, this volume offers details of their colourful uniforms and fascinating weaponry with colour and black and white photographs, artwork, maps and diagrams.

my two cents

when Osprey employs a single writer to deal with the 3500-year military history of imperial China, then bundles it in a perkily priced hardcover, it's usually a sign that the man in question knows his stuff.

So with Peers, his expertise enriched by the stellar artwork of Angus McBride and others. It's mostly about tactis and weapons as usual for the Men-at-Arms series.

I miss the synergy between the art of war and the society that produces it as much as the crimson result. The political framework is Spartan, with a periodical battle list thrown in hapzardly

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

by Peter Frankopan

The No. 1 Sunday Times and international bestseller - a major reassessment of world history in light of the economic and political renaissance in the re-emerging east.

'Magnificent' Sunday Times

'Immensely entertaining ... so ambitious, so detailed, so fascinating' The Times

For centuries, fame and fortune were to be found in the west – in the New World of the Americas. Today, it is the east which calls out to those in search of riches and adventure. Sweeping right across Central Asia and deep into China and India, a region that once took centre stage is again rising to dominate global politics, commerce and culture.

A major reassessment of world history, The Silk Roads is a dazzling exploration of the forces that have driven the rise and fall of empires, determined the flow of ideas and goods and are now heralding a new dawn in international affairs.