The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture

The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture
Author: Richard J. Smith
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 625
Release: 2015-10-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1442221941

The Qing dynasty (1636–1912)—a crucial bridge between “traditional” and “modern” China—was remarkable for its expansiveness and cultural sophistication. This engaging and insightful history of Qing political, social, and cultural life traces the complex interaction between the Inner Asian traditions of the Manchus, who conquered China in 1644, and indigenous Chinese cultural traditions. Noted historian Richard J. Smith argues that the pragmatic Qing emperors presented a “Chinese” face to their subjects who lived south of the Great Wall and other ethnic faces (particularly Manchu, Mongolian, Central Asian, and Tibetan) to subjects in other parts of their vast multicultural empire. They were attracted by many aspects of Chinese culture, but far from being completely “sinicized” as many scholars argue, they were also proud of their own cultural traditions and interested in other cultures as well. Setting Qing dynasty culture in historical and global perspective, Smith shows how the Chinese of the era viewed the world; how their outlook was expressed in their institutions, material culture, and customs; and how China’s preoccupation with order, unity, and harmony contributed to the civilization’s remarkable cohesiveness and continuity. Nuanced and wide-ranging, his authoritative book provides an essential introduction to late imperial Chinese culture and society.

The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture

The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture
Author: Richard Joseph Smith
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015
Genre: China
ISBN: 9781442221932

This engaging and insightful history of the Qing dynasty (1636-1912) offers a systematic discussion of topics such as language, philosophy, religion, art, literature, and social customs. Nuanced and wide-ranging, noted historian Richard J. Smith's authoritative book provides a...

The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture

The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture
Author: Richard Joseph Smith
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781442221925

This engaging and insightful history of the Qing dynasty (1636-1912) offers a systematic discussion of topics such as language, philosophy, religion, art, literature, and social customs. Nuanced and wide-ranging, noted historian Richard J. Smith's authoritative book provides an essential introduction to late imperial Chinese culture and society.

China's Cultural Heritage

China's Cultural Heritage
Author: Richard J Smith
Publisher: Westview Press
Total Pages: 602
Release: 1994-07-20
Genre: History
ISBN:

Based on the author's careful rethinking of certain themes and arguments presented in the first edition, this revised version of China's Cultural Heritage also draws heavily upon the enormous body of new scholarship on Chinese history and culture that has appeared in the last decade. Although focused primarily on the Qing Dynasty, the book not only sheds valuable light on the distant past but it also helps us to understand China's contemporary problems of modernization.

Culture and Order in World Politics

Culture and Order in World Politics
Author: Andrew Phillips
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2020-01-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108484972

Provides a new framework for reconceptualizing the historical and contemporary relationship between cultural diversity, political authority, and international order.

China's Last Empire

China's Last Empire
Author: Brian A. Dursum
Publisher:
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2014-09-01
Genre: Art, Chinese
ISBN: 9780989468411

Manchus and Han

Manchus and Han
Author: Edward J. M. Rhoads
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2017-05-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0295997486

China�s 1911�12 Revolution, which overthrew a 2000-year succession of dynasties, is thought of primarily as a change in governmental style, from imperial to republican, traditional to modern. But given that the dynasty that was overthrown�the Qing�was that of a minority ethnic group that had ruled China�s Han majority for nearly three centuries, and that the revolutionaries were overwhelmingly Han, to what extent was the revolution not only anti-monarchical, but also anti-Manchu? Edward Rhoads explores this provocative and complicated question in Manchus and Han, analyzing the evolution of the Manchus from a hereditary military caste (the �banner people�) to a distinct ethnic group and then detailing the interplay and dialogue between the Manchu court and Han reformers that culminated in the dramatic changes of the early 20th century. Until now, many scholars have assumed that the Manchus had been assimilated into Han culture long before the 1911 Revolution and were no longer separate and distinguishable. But Rhoads demonstrates that in many ways Manchus remained an alien, privileged, and distinct group. Manchus and Han is a pathbreaking study that will forever change the way historians of China view the events leading to the fall of the Qing dynasty. Likewise, it will clarify for ethnologists the unique origin of the Manchus as an occupational caste and their shifting relationship with the Han, from border people to rulers to ruled. Winner of the Joseph Levenson Book Prize for Modern China, sponsored by The China and Inner Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies

Hawai‘i Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture

Hawai‘i Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture
Author: Victor H. Mair
Publisher: Latitude 20
Total Pages: 764
Release: 2005-01-31
Genre: History
ISBN:

The Hawai‘i Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture is a collection of more than ninety primary sources—all but a few of which were translated specifically for this volume—of cultural significance from the Bronze Age to the turn of the twentieth century. They take into account virtually every aspect of traditional culture, including sources from the non-Sinitic ethnic minorities.

China's Last Empire

China's Last Empire
Author: William T. Rowe
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2010-02-15
Genre:
ISBN: 0674054555

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