Development and Decline of Fukien Province in the 17th and 18th Centuries

Development and Decline of Fukien Province in the 17th and 18th Centuries
Author: Vermeer
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 492
Release: 2022-04-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004488456

The history of China's Southeast coast has unusual features. For many centuries, overseas trade and migration, internal and external warfare, strong religious beliefs and receptiveness to foreign influences characterized this society of fiercely independent traders, fishermen and mountain farmers. The protracted struggle of Cheng Ch'eng- kung and the Southern Ming against the Ch'ing dynasty precipitated Fukien into a crisis, from which many chose to escape by emigration to the Philippines and Taiwan. Recovery was slow. ; The fourteen Western and Chinese contributors to this study focus on internal economic and social developments, overseas and religious change. From the rich Chinese and European source materials, a picture emerges of great regional diversity. Local interests and values were confronted by the central government's orthodox rule, and Western influences of Jesuits and traders. The Fukienese reaction to them produces fascinating insights into Chinese society, and a truly local history which may qualify our ideas on the Chinese Empire. REA sinologists, social and economic historians.

Daoism Handbook

Daoism Handbook
Author: Livia Kohn
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 964
Release: 2000-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9789004112087

This handbook provides key information on the Daoist tradition in an easily accessible yet highly readable format. It contains a coherent collection of thirty articles by major scholars in the field and presents the latest level of research available today. A highly useful resource for both scholars and students.

The Great Divergence

The Great Divergence
Author: Kenneth Pomeranz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 069121719X

A landmark comparative history of Europe and China that examines why the Industrial Revolution emerged in the West The Great Divergence sheds light on one of the great questions of history: Why did sustained industrial growth begin in Northwest Europe? Historian Kenneth Pomeranz shows that as recently as 1750, life expectancy, consumption, and product and factor markets were comparable in Europe and East Asia. Moreover, key regions in China and Japan were no worse off ecologically than those in Western Europe, with each region facing corresponding shortages of land-intensive products. Pomeranz’s comparative lens reveals the two critical factors resulting in Europe's nineteenth-century divergence—the fortunate location of coal and access to trade with the New World. As East Asia’s economy stagnated, Europe narrowly escaped the same fate largely due to favorable resource stocks from underground and overseas. This Princeton Classics edition includes a preface from the author and makes a powerful historical work available to new readers.

Elusive Capital

Elusive Capital
Author: Gipouloux, François
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2022-06-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1800889909

Offering a fresh analysis of late imperial China, this cutting-edge book revisits the roles played by merchant networks, economic institutions, and business practices in the divergence between Europe and China during the trade revolution.

1493

1493
Author: Charles C. Mann
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 722
Release: 2012-07-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307278247

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A deeply engaging history of how European settlements in the post-Colombian Americas shaped the world—from the highly acclaimed author of 1491. • "Fascinating...Lively...A convincing explanation of why our world is the way it is." —The New York Times Book Review Presenting the latest research by biologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, and historians, Mann shows how the post-Columbian network of ecological and economic exchange fostered the rise of Europe, devastated imperial China, convulsed Africa, and for two centuries made Mexico City—where Asia, Europe, and the new frontier of the Americas dynamically interacted—the center of the world. In this history, Mann uncovers the germ of today's fiercest political disputes, from immigration to trade policy to culture wars. In 1493, Mann has again given readers an eye-opening scientific interpretation of our past, unequaled in its authority and fascination.

Sentimental Education in Chinese History

Sentimental Education in Chinese History
Author: Paolo Santangelo
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 621
Release: 2021-10-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004483063

This is the long-awaited first book-form result of the author’s pioneering interdisciplinary research on a key problem for understanding Chinese texts, and, therewith, China: its ways of expression of emotions and states of mind. Relying on his immense database on (mostly) Ming and Qing sources, the author here presents the first truly solid, source-based survey on the subject. After analysing the methodological problems involved, the volume focuses on contradictions between official values on the one hand, and practical compromises between individual appetitive energies and personal tendencies for wealth and gratification of desires on the other hand. It analyses the negotiating process between the rigid ethical codes and dynamic social changes, as well as how social control influences the cognitive elements of emotions, both in restraining personal passions and promoting the "virtuous sentiments".

Warfare in Chinese History

Warfare in Chinese History
Author: H. J. Van Derven
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 476
Release: 2000-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9789004117747

Based on original sources, and dealing with the subject from the earliest dynasty up to modernity, this book uniquely combines chapters on strategy and tactics. Both scope and approach make it a must not only for historians of China, but with a view to its conclusions on the place of China in the context of global military history, also for historians of (comparative) warfare in general.

Writing against The State

Writing against The State
Author: Dominik Declercq
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2021-09-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004420401

This book is about the tension between de facto political power and the claims to intellectual and moral leadership of the shi (‘gentleman class’) in Early Medieval China. Shelun, or Hypothetical Discourse, is a hitherto neglected Chinese literary genre. The author for the first time places the surviving texts against the political background that accounts for its rise and decline in early medieval China. Comprehensively annotated translations of seven Hypothetical Discourses are placed in the context of their authors' lives and times, with an emphasis on the post-Han examples of the genre. This thorough study gives insight into this subgenre of fu by which the world of the Chinese gentleman class finds an always ambiguous expression in the rhyme-prose texts under review.

Carpentry and Building in Late Imperial China

Carpentry and Building in Late Imperial China
Author: Klaas Ruitenbeek
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 548
Release: 1996-01-01
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9789004105294

This is a study of the world of carpenters and joiners, discussing both the technical and the ritual and religious aspects of building. The heart of the book is an annotated translation of the fifteenth-century carpenter's manual Lu Ban jing. Numerous illustrations further enhance the value of this book.

Converging Regions

Converging Regions
Author: Nele Lenze
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2016-05-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 131715990X

For over a millennium, Asia and the Middle East have been closely connected through maritime activities and trade, a flourishing relationship that has given rise to new and thriving societies across the Indian Ocean region and Arabia. In recent times, with the global political and economic power shifts of the past decade, significant events in the Middle East and Asia have brought about fundamental global change; the Arab uprisings, the emergence of India and China as powerful global economies, the growing strength of various new Islamic movements, and serious financial uncertainties on a global scale have laid the foundations of a new world order between East and West. The current volume examines this renewed global dynamic, and how it is changing the relationships between the interdependent global communities across Asia and the Middle East. Focussing on the broader aspects of finance and trade between the Middle East and Asia, as well as growing security issues over natural resources and questions of sovereignty, this volume concludes with speculations on the growing importance of Asia and the Middle East in the global setting.