Best of
China
1998
The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe
John Rabe - 1998
The Good Man of Nanking is a crucial document for understanding one of World War II's most horrific incidents of genocide, one which the Japanese have steadfastly refused to acknowledge. It is also the moving and awe-inspiring record of one man's conscience, courage, and generosity in the face of appalling human brutality.Until the recent emergence of John Rabe's diaries, few people knew abouth the unassuming hero who has been called the Oskar Schindler of China. In November 1937, as Japanese troops overran the Chinese capital of Nanking and began a campaign of torture, rape, and murder against its citizens, one man-a German who had lived in China for thirty years and who was a loyal follower of Adolph Hitler-put himself at risk and in order to save the lives of 200,000 poor Chinese, 600 of whom he sheltered in his own home.
Chinese History: A New Manual
Endymion Wilkinson - 1998
In this latest edition, now in a bigger format, its scope has been dramatically enlarged by the addition of one million words of new text.Twelve years in the making, the new manual introduces students to different types of transmitted, excavated, and artifactual sources from prehistory to the twentieth century. It also examines the context in which the sources were produced, preserved, and received, the problems of research and interpretation associated with them, and the best, most up-to-date secondary works. Because the writing of history has always played a central role in Chinese politics and culture, special attention is devoted to the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese historiography.The new manual comprises fourteen book-length parts subdivided into a total of seventy-six chapters: Books 1 9 cover Language; People; Geography and the Environment; Governing and Educating; Ideas and Beliefs, Literature, and the Fine Arts; Agriculture, Food, and Drink; Technology and Science; Trade; and Historiography. Books 10 13 present primary and secondary sources chronologically by period. Book 14 is on historical bibliography. Electronic resources are covered throughout."
The Greatest Treasure
Demi - 1998
In this traditional Chinese tale, a poor man receives a treasure of gold and discovers the true value of simple pleasures.
Splendid Slippers: A Thousand Years of an Erotic Tradition
Beverley Jackson - 1998
The author's vast collection of historical and contemporary photographs, plus 40 full-color -portraits- of her most prized slippers, creates a uniquely poignant and evocative panorama.
Unfabling the East: The Enlightenment's Encounter with Asia
Jürgen Osterhammel - 1998
In this panoramic and colorful book, Jürgen Osterhammel tells the story of the European Enlightenment's nuanced encounter with the great civilizations of the East, from the Ottoman Empire and India to China and Japan.Here is the acclaimed book that challenges the notion that Europe's formative engagement with the non-European world was invariably marred by an imperial gaze and presumptions of Western superiority. Osterhammel shows how major figures such as Leibniz, Voltaire, Gibbon, and Hegel took a keen interest in Asian culture and history, and introduces lesser-known scientific travelers, colonial administrators, Jesuit missionaries, and adventurers who returned home from Asia bearing manuscripts in many exotic languages, huge collections of ethnographic data, and stories that sometimes defied belief. Osterhammel brings the sights and sounds of this tumultuous age vividly to life, from the salons of Paris and the lecture halls of Edinburgh to the deserts of Arabia, the steppes of Siberia, and the sumptuous courts of Asian princes. He demonstrates how Europe discovered its own identity anew by measuring itself against its more senior continent, and how it was only toward the end of this period that cruder forms of Eurocentrism--and condescension toward Asia—prevailed.A momentous work by one of Europe's most eminent historians, Unfabling the East takes readers on a thrilling voyage to the farthest shores, bringing back vital insights for our own multicultural age.
Limited Views: Essays on Ideas and Letters
Qian Zhongshu - 1998
Qian Zhongshu (b.1910) is arguably contemporary China's foremost man of letters, and Limited Views is recognized as the culmination of his study of literature in both the Chinese and the Western traditions.
Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History
Nicola Di Cosmo - 1998
details the formation of two increasingly distinct cultural areas: the sedentary Chinese and the northern nomads. Nicola Di Cosmo explores the tensions existing between these two worlds as they became progressively more polarized, with the eventual creation of the nomadic Hsiung-nu empire in the north, and of the Chinese empire in the south. Di Cosmo investigates the origins of the antagonism between early China and its barbarian neighbors.
About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton
James Mann - 1998
President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger began their diplomacy with China in an attempt to find a way out of Vietnam. The remaining Cold War presidents saw China as an ally against the Soviet Union and looked askance at its violations of international principles. With the end of communism and China's continued human rights abuses, the U.S has failed to forge a genuinely new relationship with China. This is the essential story of contemporary U.S./China policy.
Beyond the Pass: Economy, Ethnicity, and Empire in Qing Central Asia, 1759-1864
James A. Millward - 1998
In an effort to satisfy criticism of their expansion into Xinjiang and make the territory pay for itself, the Qing court permitted local authorities great latitude in fiscal matters and encouraged the presence of Han and Chinese Muslim merchants. At the same time, the court recognized the potential for unrest posed by Chinese mercantile penetration of this Muslim, Turkic-speaking area. They consequently attempted, through administrative and legal means, to defend the native Uyghur population against economic depredation. This ethnic policy reflected a conception of the realm that was not Sinocentric, but rather placed the Uyghur on a par with Han Chinese.Both this ethnic policy and Xinjiang’s place in the realm shifted following a series of invasions from western Turkestan starting in the 1820’s. Because of the economic importance of Chinese merchants and the efficacy of merchant militia in Xinjiang, the Qing court revised its policies in their favor, for the first time allowing permanent Han settlement in the area. At the same time, the court began to advocate provincehood and the Sinicization of Xinjiang as a resolution to the perennial security problem. These shifts, the author argues, marked the beginning of a reconception of China to include Inner Asian lands and peoples—a notion that would, by the twentieth century, become a deeply held tenet of Chinese nationalism.
Babies Celebrated
Béatrice Fontanel - 1998
This work travels the globe to reveal how the babies live in a range of places and cultures. Photographs coupled with interviews with specialists in the various societies, reveal details of life in Sioux, Manchu, Patagonian and many other communities. In five sections covering bathing, clothing, carrying, sleeping and family, this work offers an introduction to child-rearing traditions around the world. The authors have also written Abrams' Babies: History, Art, and Folklore.
Into the Porcelain Pillow: 101 Tales from the Records of the Taiping Era
Li Fang - 1998
Records of the Taiping Era is China's most famous collection of ancient stories. It contains nearly 7,000 intriguing tales from 475 books dating from the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.- 220 A.D.) to the beginning of the Song Dynasty (978). The whole work consists of 500 Volumes in over 150 categories. The book was completed in the third year of the Taiping Xingguo period (978), hence the name. The present work comprises 101 stories from Records of the Taiping Era compiled according to the categories of "Gods and Spirits" and "Man and Life." The stories of "Gods and Spirits" are full of wisdom, while those of "Man and Life" are endearing and exotic. Products of a liberal and romantic era in China's history. these exquisite and marvellous stories encapsulate the imagination and creativity of the ancient Chinese people. They have had a lasting impact on the Chinese people's ways of thinking concepts, folk customs and everyday life through the ages. The lavish illustrations of the plots of the stories will lead readers into a mysterious antique world.
Wildlife of the Tibetan Steppe
George B. Schaller - 1998
Since 1985, George B. Schaller and his Chinese and Tibetan co-workers have surveyed the flora and fauna of the Chang Tang. Their research provides the first detailed look at the natural history of one of the world's least known ecosystems.The plains ungulates are the main focus of this book—especially the Tibetan antelope, or chiru, whose migrations define this ecosystem much as those of the wildebeest define the Serengeti. Schaller's descriptions of mammal numbers and distribution, behavior, and ecology provide baseline information that may allow wildlife, grasslands, and pastoralists to continue to coexist harmoniously in this region.This project led to the creation of the 130,000-square-mile Chang Tang Reserve by the Tibetan government in 1993, and Wildlife of the Tibetan Steppe should help promote future studies as well as conservation and management efforts."Schaller makes significant contributions to an understanding of the origins and ecology of Tibetan wildlife that will thrill specialists. . . . Schaller's book is much more than an ecological synthesis. It is a quest for conservation, a case history by a very brave and capable man, driven by no small passion to prevent the tragedy of extinction that looms over Tibet's fauna. His book touches not only the mind but also the heart, and in the context of conservation and the future it raises questions to torture the soul. . . . Wildlife of the Tibetan Steppe will long remain a unique, important source of biological, but also sociological, insights and challenges. I found it well written and difficult to put down."—Valerius Geist, Nature"The topics in Wildlife of the Tibetan Steppe are at least as diverse as the topography; they range from geology and paleoecology to descriptions of ungulates and carnivores unknown to most of the non-Chinese speaking world. Individual chapters focus on kiangs, Bactrian camels, yaks, chirus, blue sheep, and Tibetan argalis and gazelles. Not only is much of the biological information new, but subsumed within these chapters are current and past estimates of population sizes both in the Chang Tang Reserve and in protected and nonprotected areas of 'the' plateau. Insights are provided into social structure, and speculations about the evolution and adaptive bases of behavior are carefully offered. Subsequent chapters involve discussions of carnivore communities and interactions between people and wildlife, including the localized but devastating effects of poachers. . . . This book has something for all audiences. . . . [A]n exciting testimony to the past and present status of a biologically spectacular region."—Joel Berger, Conservation Biology
Shifu, Soul of Chinese Anarchism
Edward S. Krebs - 1998
Born in 1884, Shifu was brought down in 1915 by overwork, poverty, and tuberculosis. Yet during that short span, he became the most influential anarchist of his time. Drawing on a wealth of primary source material, Krebs provides an intellectual biography of this committed revolutionary and analyzes the importance of Shifu's thought during the New Culture-May Fourth years as his followers fought for influence with the Marxists and later over the issue of alliance with the Nationalists. Placing Shifu's life within the dynamic intellectual and political currents of the time, the author describes Shifu's early work as an assassin within the anti-Qing movement. Examining the influence on Shifu of Confucianism and Buddhism, Krebs highlights reform Buddhism's close relationship with revolutionary activism. Most significantly, Shifu's unflagging work to propagate anarchism during the early years of the Republic and his interactions with other socialists reveal a hitherto unknown level of activity among socialist revolutionaries. This important book thus offers fresh insights not only into the anarchist movement itself, but into the broader history of Chinese socialism as well.
Human Rights in Chinese Thought: A Cross-Cultural Inquiry
Stephen C. Angle - 1998
It integrates a full account of the development of Chinese rights discourse with philosophical consideration of how various communities should respond to contemporary Chinese claims about the uniqueness of their human rights concepts. The book elaborates a plausible kind of moral pluralism and demonstrates that Chinese ideas of human rights do indeed have distinctive characteristics, but it nonetheless argues for the importance and promise of cross-cultural moral engagement.
What Has Jerusalem to Do with Beijing?: Biblical Interpretation from a Chinese Perspective
Khiok-Khng Yeo - 1998
Yeo is a promising young voice from Asia whose discernment of the relevance of the gospel to cultures and current socio-political realities in that part of the world is welcome and needed for the West's understanding of the East, and even for the East's understanding of itself. His studies gathered here range from exploration of the philosophical structure of eastern Buddhist cultures to present-day political realities in Malaysia and China.The book is divided into three parts. Part I examines the methods of cross-cultural hermeneutics. Part II represents a dialogue with perennial themes in Chinese culture: Yin and Yang in Genesis and Exodus; the Ming of Tien ("will of God') in Amos and Confucius; the Li and Jen "torah and spirit" in Romans. Part III applies biblical messages to current Chinese situations, including suffering, oppressive acts such as Tienanmen Square, and the role of women.
Crazy Ji: Chinese Religion and Popular Literature
Meir Shahar - 1998
The author uses the evolution of his cult to address central questions regarding the Chinese religious tradition, its relation to social structure, and the role of vernacular fiction and popular media in shaping religious beliefs. Shahar demonstrates that vernacular novels and oral literature played a major role in the dissemination of knowledge about deities and the growth of cults and argues that the body of religious beliefs and practices we call "Chinese religion" is inseparable from the works of fiction and drama that have served as vehicles for its transmission.
Basic Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook
Yip Po-Ching - 1998
Each of the 25 units deals with a particular grammatical point and provides associated exercises. Features include:a clear, accessible formatmany useful language examplesjargon-free explanations of grammar ample drills and exercises a full key to exercises. All Chinese entries are presented in both Pinyin romanization and Chinese characters, and are accompanied, in most cases, by English translations to facilitate self-tuition as well as classroom teaching in both spoken and written Chinese. Basic Chinese is designed for students new to the language. Together with its sister volume, Intermediate Chinese, it forms a compendium of the essentials of Chinese syntax.
Wandering at Ease in the Zhuangzi
Roger T. Ames - 1998
Daoist classic, in this collection of interpretive essays. The Zhuangzi is a celebration of human creativity--its language is lucid and opaque; its images are darkly brilliant; its ideas are seriously playful. Without question, it is one of the most challenging achievements of human literary culture. Thematically, the Zhuangzi offers diverse insights into how to develop an appropriate and productive attitude to one's life in this world. Resourced over the centuries by Chinese artists and intellectuals alike, this text has provoked a commentarial tradition that rivals any masterpiece of world literature.Wandering at Ease in the Zhuangzi continues the interpretive tradition as Western scholars shed light on selected passages from the difficult text, offering the needed mediation between available translations of the Zhuangzi and the reader's process of understanding. Taken as a whole, this anthology is a primer on how to read the Zhuangzi.
Forbidden City: The Great Within
May Holdsworth - 1998
A new chapter deals with the treasures and paintings collected under imperial patronage their dramatic dispersal, painstaking recovery and restoration and ends in the triumphant establishment of the Palace Museum.Introduction by pre-eminent China scholar Jonathan Spence; explains the rich history of the home of the Chinese emperor; draws on previously inaccessible information in Beijing; explores the lifestyles behind the Forbidden City's walls; extensive quotes from early days, including views from palace maids and eunuchs; detailed map of the Forbidden City's layout.
Concerning Creativity: A Comparison of Chu Hsi, Whitehead, and Neville
John H. Berthrong - 1998
Neville--separated by time, space, and culture. In so doing John H. Berthrong provides a suggestive and successful comparison of creativity as a cross-cultural theme while introducing Neo-Confucianism as a sophisticated dialogue partner with modern Western speculative philosophy and theology.Creativity lies at the heart of the discourse of Chu Hsi (1130-1200) and Alfred North Whitehead. For both, creativity emerges as an attempt to illustrate the organic unity of the world without resorting to an appeal to a source for creativity beyond the concrete actuality of the cosmos. Subtle critics such as Robert C. Neville argue that process thought is fatally flawed because Whitehead separated creativity from the other crucial elements of his system. By interjecting the Chinese Neo-Confucian synthesis of Chu Hsi, it is possible to show how creativity can be re-integrated into process discourse as creative synthesis.
Encyclopedia of China: The Essential Reference to China, Its History and Culture
Dorothy Perkins - 1998
For centuries, wisdom and inspiration have poured forth from these holy people. Ranging from the inspirational to the philosophical, the sayings of saints and excerpts from their writings are now compiled into one volume. The Quotable Saint is an extensive collection of excerpts from the lives, thoughts, writings, and sayings of the saints. More than 3,000 quotes cover a wide range of topics, including daily life, work, family, marriage, relationships, the afterlife, the soul, and more. The quotes are listed under more than 250 categories, such as God; Creation; Natural World; Humanity; Angels; Truth; Knowledge; Wisdom; Love; Spiritual Path; Evil; and Death and the Afterlife. The Quotable Saint is an excellent guide to the insights and observations of this group of extraordinary religious personalities.
The Political Economy of Uneven Development: The Case of China
Shaoguang Wang - 1998
Exploring one of the most dynamic and contested regions of the world, this series includes works on political, economic, cultural, and social changes in modern and contemporary Asia and the Pacific.