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Describes the social and cultural transformation of seventeenth-century China through the life and work of Li Yu
The second and first centuries B.C. were a critical period in Chinese history—they saw the birth and development of the new Chinese empire and its earliest expansion and acquisition of frontier territories. But for almost two thousand years, because of gaps in the available records, this essential chapter in the history was missing. Fortunately, with the discovery during the last century of about sixty thousand Han-period documents in Central Asia and western China preserved on strips of wood and bamboo, scholars have been able, for the first time, to put together many of the missing pieces. In this first volume of his monumental history, Chun-shu Chang uses these newfound documents to analyze the ways in which political, institutional, social, economic, military, religious, and thought systems developed and changed in the critical period from early China to the Han empire (ca. 1600 B.C. – A.D. 220). In addition to exploring the formation and growth of the Chinese empire and its impact on early nation-building and later territorial expansion, Chang also provides insights into the life and character of critical historical figures such as the First Emperor (221– 210 B.C.) of the Ch’in and Wu-ti (141– 87 B.C.) of the Han, who were the principal agents in redefining China and its relationships with other parts of Asia. As never before, Chang’s study enables an understanding of the origins and development of the concepts of state, nation, nationalism, imperialism, ethnicity, and Chineseness in ancient and early Imperial China, offering the first systematic reconstruction of the history of Chinese acquisition and colonization. Chun-shu Changis Professor of History at the University of Michigan and is the author, with Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang, ofCrisis and Transformation in Seventeenth-Century ChinaandRedefining History: Ghosts, Spirits, and Human Society in P’u Sung-ling’s World, 1640–1715. “An extraordinary survey of the political and administrative history of early imperial China, which makes available a body of evidence and scholarship otherwise inaccessible to English-readers. The underpinning of research is truly stupendous.” —Ray Van Dam, Professor, Department of History, University of Michigan “Powerfully argues from literary and archaeological records that empire, modeled on Han paradigms, has largely defined Chinese civilization ever since.” —Joanna Waley-Cohen, Professor, Department of History, New York University
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST A New York Times Notable Book of 2022 What does it take to reinvent a language? After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world’s most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, as the world underwent a massive technological transformation that threatened to leave them behind. In Kingdom of Characters, Jing Tsu argues that China’s most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: the century-long fight to make the formidable Chinese language accessible to the modern world of global trade and digital technology. Kingdom of Characters follows the bold innovators who reinvented the Chinese language, among them an exiled reformer who risked a death sentence to advocate for Mandarin as a national language, a Chinese-Muslim poet who laid the groundwork for Chairman Mao's phonetic writing system, and a computer engineer who devised input codes for Chinese characters on the lid of a teacup from the floor of a jail cell. Without their advances, China might never have become the dominating force we know today. With larger-than-life characters and an unexpected perspective on the major events of China’s tumultuous twentieth century, Tsu reveals how language is both a technology to be perfected and a subtle, yet potent, power to be exercised and expanded.
Between the end of the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution, the long-established structures and practices of European agriculture and industry were slowly, disparately, but profoundly transformed. Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe, first published in 1997, narrates and analyzes the diverse patterns of economic change that permanently modified rural and urban production, altered Europe's economy and geography, and gave birth to new social classes. Broad in chronological and geographical scope and explicitly comparative, the book introduces readers to a wealth of information drawn from thoughout Mediterranean, east-central, and western Europe, as well as to the classic interpretations and current debates and revisions. The study incorporates scholarship on topics such as the world economy and women's work, and it discusses at length the impact of the emergent capitalist order on Europe's working people.
Playwrights and Literary Games in Seventeenth-Century China: Plays by Tang Xianzu, Mei Dingzuo, Wu Bing, Li Yu, and Kong Shangren is a full-length study of chuanqi (romance) drama, a sophisticated form with substantial literary and meta-theatrical value that reigned in Chinese theater from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries and nourished later theatrical traditions including jingju (Beijing Opera). Highly educated dramatists used chuanqi to present in artistic form personal, social, and political concerns of their time. There were six outstanding examples of these trends, considered masterpieces in their time and ever since. This study presents them in their social and cultural context during the long seventeenth century (1580D1700), the period of great experimentation and political transition. The romantic spirit and independent thinking of the late Ming elite stimulated the efflorescence of the chuanqi, and that legacy was inherited and investigated during the second half of the seventeenth-century in early Qing. Jing Shen examinees the texts to demonstrate that the playwrights appropriate, convert, or misinterpret other genres or literary works of enduring influence into their plays to convey subtle and subversive expressions in the fine margins between tradition and innovation, history and theatrical re-presentation. By exploring the components of romance in texts from late Ming to early Qing, Shen reveals creative readings of earlier themes, stories, plays and the changing idea of romanticism for chuanqi drama. This study also shows the engagement of literati playwrights in closed literary circles in which chuanqi plays became a tool by which literati playwrights negotiated their agency and social stature. The five playwrights whose works are analyzed in this book had different experiences pursuing government service as scholar-officials; some failed to achieve high office. But their common concerns and self-conscious literary choices reveal important insights into the culture of the seventeenth century, and into the sociopolitical implications of the chuanqi genre. In addition to classical Chinese commentaries on chuanqi drama, this book uses modern critical theories and terminology on Western drama to enhance the analysis of chuanqi plays.
“Thoughtful, probing...a worthy successor to the famous histories of Fairbank and Spence [that] will be read by all students and scholars of modern China.” —William C. Kirby, coauthor of Can China Lead? It is tempting to attribute the rise of China to Deng Xiaoping and to recent changes in economic policy. But China has a long history of creative adaptation. In the eighteenth century, the Qing Empire dominated a third of the world’s population. Then, as the Opium Wars and the Taiping Rebellion ripped the country apart, China found itself verging on free fall. More recently, after Mao, China managed a surprising recovery, rapidly undergoing profound economic and social change. A dynamic story of crisis and recovery, failure and triumph, Making China Modern explores the versatility and resourcefulness that guaranteed China’s survival, powered its rise, and will determine its future. “Chronicles reforms, revolutions, and wars through the lens of institutions, often rebutting Western impressions.” —New Yorker “A remarkable accomplishment. Unlike an earlier generation of scholarship, Making China Modern does not treat China’s contemporary transformation as a postscript. It accepts China as a major and active player in the world, places China at the center of an interconnected and global network of engagement, links domestic politics to international dynamics, and seeks to approach China on its own terms.” —Wen-hsin Yeh, author of Shanghai Splendor
Prior to the initiation of economic reforms and trade liberalization 36 years ago, China maintained policies that kept the economy very poor, stagnant, centrally-controlled, vastly inefficient, and relatively isolated from the global economy. Since opening up to foreign trade and investment and implementing free market reforms in 1979, China has been among the world's fastest-growing economies, with real annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaging nearly 10% through 2016. In recent years, China has emerged as a major global economic power. It is now the world's largest economy (on a purchasing power parity basis), manufacturer, merchandise trader, and holder of foreign exchange reserves.The global economic crisis that began in 2008 greatly affected China's economy. China's exports, imports, and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows declined, GDP growth slowed, and millions of Chinese workers reportedly lost their jobs. The Chinese government responded by implementing a $586 billion economic stimulus package and loosening monetary policies to increase bank lending. Such policies enabled China to effectively weather the effects of the sharp global fall in demand for Chinese products, but may have contributed to overcapacity in several industries and increased debt by Chinese firms and local government. China's economy has slowed in recent years. Real GDP growth has slowed in each of the past six years, dropping from 10.6% in 2010 to 6.7% in 2016, and is projected to slow to 5.7% by 2022.The Chinese government has attempted to steer the economy to a "new normal" of slower, but more stable and sustainable, economic growth. Yet, concerns have deepened in recent years over the health of the Chinese economy. On August 11, 2015, the Chinese government announced that the daily reference rate of the renminbi (RMB) would become more "market-oriented." Over the next three days, the RMB depreciated against the dollar and led to charges that China's goal was to boost exports to help stimulate the economy (which some suspect is in worse shape than indicated by official Chinese economic statistics). Concerns over the state of the Chinese economy appear to have often contributed to volatility in global stock indexes in recent years.The ability of China to maintain a rapidly growing economy in the long run will likely depend largely on the ability of the Chinese government to implement comprehensive economic reforms that more quickly hasten China's transition to a free market economy; rebalance the Chinese economy by making consumer demand, rather than exporting and fixed investment, the main engine of economic growth; boost productivity and innovation; address growing income disparities; and enhance environmental protection. The Chinese government has acknowledged that its current economic growth model needs to be altered and has announced several initiatives to address various economic challenges. In November 2013, the Communist Party of China held the Third Plenum of its 18th Party Congress, which outlined a number of broad policy reforms to boost competition and economic efficiency. For example, the communique stated that the market would now play a "decisive" role in allocating resources in the economy. At the same time, however, the communique emphasized the continued important role of the state sector in China's economy. In addition, many foreign firms have complained that the business climate in China has worsened in recent years. Thus, it remains unclear how committed the Chinese government is to implementing new comprehensive economic reforms.China's economic rise has significant implications for the United States and hence is of major interest to Congress. This report provides background on China's economic rise; describes its current economic structure; identifies the challenges China faces to maintain economic growth; and discusses the challenges, opportunities, and implications of China's economic rise.
The rise of China is no doubt one of the most important events in world economic history since the Industrial Revolution. Mainstream economics, especially the institutional theory of economic development based on a dichotomy of extractive vs. inclusive political institutions, is highly inadequate in explaining China's rise. This book argues that only a radical reinterpretation of the history of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the West (as incorrectly portrayed by the institutional theory) can fully explain China's growth miracle and why the determined rise of China is unstoppable despite its current 'backward' financial system and political institutions. Conversely, China's spectacular and rapid transformation from an impoverished agrarian society to a formidable industrial superpower sheds considerable light on the fundamental shortcomings of the institutional theory and mainstream 'blackboard' economic models, and provides more-accurate reevaluations of historical episodes such as Africa's enduring poverty trap despite radical political and economic reforms, Latin America's lost decades and frequent debt crises, 19th century Europe's great escape from the Malthusian trap, and the Industrial Revolution itself.
In this, the first full-length study in English of China's best-known travel writer, new light is shed on the importance of the diaries of Xu Xiake (1587-1687) a compulsive traveller who spent a lifetime visiting and writing about China's 'beauty spots'. The general view of his work, that he brought a sober, analytical approach to a genre previously the domain of the dillentante and that his writing was 'utilitarian' and lacking in literary merit is cast aside, revealing Xu to be a figure of his age, his concerns perfectly in tune with the exuberant tastes of other late Ming literati. Essential background is provided with a survey of the history of Chinese travel writing in general with particular emphasis given to the late-Ming period and a resume of Xu Xiake's life. The core of the work examines the wealth of new information to be found in a longer version of Xu's account of his great journey to southwest China, rediscovered in the 1970s. Detailed study of Xu's use of language serves to underline the breadth of achievement of a man who utilised traditional and contemporary Chinese poetic language in order to express an emotional response to the landscape through which he passed. This is reinforced by a complete annotated translation of a deeply personal essay, written towards the end of Xu's life. The book covers a broad spectrum of voguish sinological subjects relating to late Ming China ranging from the huge growth in all forms of geographical writing to the anthropological analysis of the non-Han peoples of southwest China. This book will interest both seasoned sinologists and anyone who has spent time travelling in China or is interested in the art of travel writing.
Exploring the works of key women writers within their cultural, artistic and socio-political contexts, this book considers changes in the perception of women in early modern China. The sixteenth century brought rapid developments in technology, commerce and the publishing industry that saw women emerging in new roles as both consumers and producers of culture. This book examines the place of women in the cultural elite and in society more generally, reconstructing examples of particular women’s personal experiences, and retracing the changing roles of women from the late Ming to the early Qing era (1580-1700). Providing rich detail of exceptionally fine, interesting and engaging literary works, this book opens fascinating new windows onto the lives, dreams, nightmares, anxieties and desires of the authors and the world out of which they emerged.