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From Forest Farm to Sawmill
Stories of Labor, Gender, and the Chinese State
Socialist China’s state forestry and timber industries employed men as state workers and women as family dependents and collective workers who, beginning in the 1950s, turned rural land into urban-industrial space. These features make forestry...
ISBN: 9780295752679
more detailsAn Ecological History of Modern China
Is environmental degradation an inevitable result of economic development? Can ecosystems be restored once government officials and the public are committed to doing so? These questions are at the heart of An Ecological History of...
ISBN: 9780295751719
more detailsMaterial Contradictions in Mao's China
The growth of markets and consumerism in China’s post-Mao era of political and economic reform is a story familiar to many. By contrast, the Mao period (1949–1976)—rightly framed as a time of scarcity—initially appears to...
ISBN: 9780295750859
more detailsDivine, Demonic, and Disordered
Women without Men in Song Dynasty China
A variety of Chinese writings from the Song period (960–1279)—medical texts, religious treatises, fiction, and anecdotes—depict women who were considered peculiar because their sexual bodies did not belong to men. These were women who refused...
ISBN: 9780295748320
more detailsThe Rise of West Lake
A Cultural Landmark in the Song Dynasty
Lovely West Lake, near scenic Hangzhou on China’s east coast, has been celebrated as a major tourist site since the twelfth century. Now as then, visitors boat to its islands, stroll through its gardens, worship...
ISBN: 9780295747101
more detailsGreat Qing
Painting in China, 1644-1911
Addressing the previous lack of a comprehensive English-language study of Qing painting, art historian Claudia Brown’s account ranges from the tumultuous Ming–Qing transition to the end of imperial rule. In response to omissions in previous...
ISBN: 9780295747231
more detailsQing Governors and Their Provinces
The Evolution of Territorial Administration in China, 1644-1796
During the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the province emerged as an important element in the management of the expanding Chinese empire, with governors -- those in charge of these increasingly influential administrative units -- playing key...
ISBN: 9780295992952
more detailsState Power in China, 900-1325
This collection provides new ways to understand how state power was exercised during the overlapping Liao, Song, Jin, and Yuan dynasties. Through a set of case studies, State Power in China, 900-1325 examines large questions...
ISBN: 9780295744292
more detailsOn Cold Mountain
A Buddhist Reading of the Hanshan Poems
In this first serious study of Hanshan (“Cold Mountain”), Paul Rouzer discusses some seventy poems of the iconic Chinese poet who lived sometime during the Tang dynasty (618–907). Hanshan’s poems gained a large readership in...
ISBN: 9780295742687
more detailsPuer Tea
Ancient Caravans and Urban Chic
Puer tea has been grown for centuries in the “Six Great Tea Mountains” of Yunnan Province, and in imperial China it was a prized commodity, traded to Tibet by horse or mule caravan via the...
ISBN: 9780295993232
more detailsForgery and Impersonation in Imperial China
Popular Deceptions and the High Qing State
Across eighteenth-century China a wide range of common people forged government documents or pretended to be officials or other agents of the state. This examination of case records and law codes traces the legal meanings...
ISBN: 9780295742700
more detailsThe Interweaving of Rituals
Funerals in the Cultural Exchange between China and Europe
The death of the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci in China in 1610 was the occasion for demonstrations of European rituals appropriate for a Catholic priest and also of Chinese rituals appropriate to the country hosting...
ISBN: 9780295988238
more detailsThe Sichuan Frontier and Tibet
Imperial Strategy in the Early Qing
During China's last dynasty, the Qing (1644-1911), the empire's remote, bleak, and politically insignificant Southwest rose to become a strategically vital area. This study of the imperial government's handling of the southwestern frontier illuminates issues...
ISBN: 9780295989525
more detailsScenic Spots
Chinese Tourism, the State, and Cultural Authority
Twenty years ago, commercial tourism in the People’s Republic of China hardly existed. Today, China has a burgeoning tourist industry, characterized by a unique style with deep roots in traditional Chinese culture. Scenic Spots is...
ISBN: 9780295987613
more detailsThe Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
Rebellion and the Blasphemy of Empire
Occupying much of imperial China’s Yangzi River heartland and costing more than twenty million lives, the Taiping Rebellion (1851-64) was no ordinary peasant revolt. What most distinguished this dramatic upheaval from earlier rebellions were the...
ISBN: 9780295993720
more detailsLetters and Epistolary Culture in Early Medieval China
Honorable Mention for the 2016 Kayden Book Award
This first book-length study in Chinese or any Western language of personal letters and letter-writing in premodern China focuses on the earliest period (ca. 3rd-6th cent. CE)...
ISBN: 9780295992785
more detailsThe Story of Han Xiangzi
The Alchemical Adventures of a Daoist Immortal
In this seventeenth-century Chinese novel, Han Xiangzi, best known as one of the Eight Immortals, seeks and achieves immortality and then devotes himself to converting his materialistic, politically ambitious Confucian uncle—Han Yu, a real historical figure—to...
ISBN: 9780295987255
more detailsLijiang Stories
Shamans, Taxi Drivers, and Runaway Brides in Reform-Era China
Lijiang, a once-sleepy market town in southwest China, has become a magnet for tourism since the mid-1990s. Drawing on stories about taxi drivers, reluctant brides, dogmeat, and shamanism, Emily Chao illustrates how biopolitics and the...
ISBN: 9780295992235
more detailsWomen’s Poetry of Late Imperial China
Transforming the Inner Chambers
This study of poetry by women in late imperial China examines the metamorphosis of the trope of the "inner chambers" (gui), to which women were confined in traditional Chinese households, and which in literature were...
ISBN: 9780295992297
more detailsTreatises of the Supervisor and Guardian of the Cinnamon Sea
The Natural World and Material Culture of Twelfth-Century China
Fan Chengda (1126-1193) was a high-ranking Chinese government official in Guangxi, an experienced traveler, a keen observer, and a gifted writer. His observations on a wide range of subjects are always interesting and revealing, and...
ISBN: 9780295990798
more details