Matteo Ricci was a Jesuit priest who went to China in 1577 and who wrote a book on memory in Chinese for the Ming court. Historian Jonathan Spence uses Ricci's memory book, and four images, to convey the history of European-Ming dynasty relations.
This brief biography of, and essay on, Chairman Mao Zedong, focuses mostly on the man rather than on history and politics. Jonathan D. Spence is a distinguished historian, known for THE SEARCH FOR MODERN CHINA.
In this book, Jonathan Spence tells the story of a man called John Hu, who accompanied a French missionary returning from Canton to France in 1722. Jonathan Spence has written several books including, "The Gates of Heavenly Peace" and "The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci".
These accounts of everyday peasant life in China's Shantung province are told against the background of history--the fall of the Ming dynasty and the arrival of invaders--and are drawn from a variety of historical and literary sources.
The rise and fall of the Taiping "Heavenly Kingdom" in mid 19th-century China was one of the most violent events in human history. Led by Hong Xiuquan, a religious visionary and failed civil servant, the Taipang Rebellion cost at least 2 million lives. Hong had a dream in which he ascended into heaven and met his "elder brother" Jesus Christ. He ...
This collection of primary source documents--many translated into English for the first time and available only in this book--gather proclamations, treaties, laws, and other public acts with pieces reflecting everyday life, family, social networks, and culture.
The author, a noted Sinologist, refers to an assortment of literary references in his study of Western perceptions of China throughout history. A "New York Times" Notable Book for 1998.
A renowned historian captures a critical moment in Chinese history Zhang Dai is recognized as one of the finest historians and essayists of Chinaas Ming dynasty. When he was born into a wealthy family in 1597, the Ming dynasty had been in place for 229 years. Zhangas early life was marked by the expansive sense of progress that permeated Ming ...
In this narrative history of 18th-century China, a prominent scholar recreates the imperial world as he relates a plot to kill the emperor. A New York Times Notable Book for 2001.
Chronicles the history of the Chinese Revolution, focusing on the people and events of modern Chinese history, the writings of modern Chinese authors, the issues facing the People's Republic, and more.
As a new era of relations between China and the United States begins, the tales in this volume illuminate the folly of foreign missionaries, soldiers, doctors, and others who foolishly believed they could transform the religious and cultural traditions of this vast, enigmatic country.
In this highly praised book, Jonathan D. Spence recounts the story of Ts'ao Yin, hereditary bond-servant to the Manchu emperors. Ts'ao Yin, whose great-grandfather was captured and enslaved by the Manchus and whose descendant wrote Dream of the Red Chamber, China's most famous novel, becomes the focal point of a fascinating study that shed ...
This modern history of China is told through the eyes of a few Chinese intellectuals. A scholar, a doctor, and a writer/political activist are the three major figures whose "lives will serve to introduce the reader to the extraordinary sequence of events that are often loosely dumped together as constituting the 'Chinese revolution.'" (from the ...
In the work of twenty-five years, Jonathan Spence has established himself as an interpreter of modern Chinese history. His most recent book was "The Search for Modern China". Spence recreates the historical character and setting in the moving story of Arcadio Huang's odyssey from south China to Enlightenment Paris, where he briefly gains a ...
A historian of China presents a photographic history depicting China's violent past and turbulent present. Most of these 300 photos, which focus on the lives of ordinary citizens as well as such leaders as Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, have never been seen outside of China.
Chen Changfen (b. 1941) began to photograph the Great Wall twenty years before the Chinese government officially adopted it as the national symbol in 1984. This fascinating book presents a small fraction of his decades-long study of the monumental form and conveys the fertile range of themes and ideas that Chen has investigated, each informed by ...
China's 20th-century has been marked by a succession of tumultous events including the Boxer rebellion, Japanese invasion and occupation, and the Tiananmen Square massacre. This record of the Chinese century includes photographs from official archives and private collections with accompanying text.
The collapse of the Ming dynasty and the takeover of China by Manchu rulers in the 1640s was of crucial importance in the late history of China. But because traditional Chinese sources arbitrarily divide the century at the change of dynasty in 1644, it has been difficult to form a clear picture of the transition. The nine essays in this book will ...
Wilma Fairbank documents, from both an historical and a uniquely personal perspective, the professional and personal achievements of Lin Whei-yin and Liang Sicheng. Liang and Lin were born in early twentieth-century China, a time when the influences of modernism were slowly bearing down on the traditional culture. In the 1920s, they traveled ...
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