Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

China is an interesting country with a rich history and the largest population on earth. We do want to discover more about this country and its vibrant history so we are setting up a folder to discuss the history of this phenomenal part of the world in depth.

We can discuss any of the places, provinces, cities, people who developed this country in some way or influenced or ruled China; and/or who helped its people, any leaders or emperors, crops, the indigenous populations, and/or events good and bad which took place in this country.

There is a plethora of history out there. Please feel free to discuss here some of the threads that I can set up to get this folder developed.

Some questions and some discussion topics could be:

a) How has China organized their society and their government?

b) How have social elites (the ruling groups) - emerged and flourished at different times in Chinese history - what was the basis of their power, how did they sustain and support themselves?

c) How did these social elites or ruling groups legitimate their powers and how did they make their rule acceptable to the people?

d) How have the Chinese thought about their own society and how they see their rule in terms of people around them? What has historically been the relationship of China with the outside world (in the past and now)?

e) The Chinese have often viewed the people around them historically as barbarians - what does that connote about the idea of Chinese civilization itself? That has to raise some discussion points as to how China sees itself, its civilization (as a culture and as a people).

f) The group could discuss how China has been involved in larger regional systems and in the global economy over time - and how that has changed.

g) How have the influences coming into China from the outside world affected the development of Chinese history and its interaction with the larger world - in particular the modern western world?

h) The group could explore the connections between economics, and social life and the world of art, literature, and philosophy.

i) The group could explore and discuss the question of whether the development of Chinese history parallels the history of other parts of the world, or whether it is unique.

Note: "Cultural and political life in China have always been linked in ways that are sometimes very different from how we normally think of things in the West. We also do not have a situation in the West where we also have a poet who is President. But in Chinese history, the way Chinese culture has worked traditionally - the poets, the painters, the artists were often also the high political officials at a particular time - so that aspect of cultural integration is also something to discuss."


Meet the Professors of ChinaX with Christopher Lydon - discuss China

Link:


Note: China currently is called People's Republic of China.

Another map of the provinces:

The Travel China Guide Map

This is an interesting China Political Map

If you want to see it larger, here is the link:

This is a link to the Wikipedia write-up giving a brief history of China:

Here is a Timeline of Chinese History:

Here is a list of recipients of tribute from China (notice Tibet among these)

Here is a list of tributaries of Imperial China:

The List of tributaries of Imperial China encompasses all states which engaged in diplomatic and foreign relations with the Chinese.[1]

The results of the Xia Shang Zhou Chronology Project.

The Xia Shang Zhou Chronology Project (simplified Chinese: ÏÄÉÌÖܶϴú¹¤³Ì; pinyin: Xi¨¤ Sh¨¡ng Zh¨­u Du¨¤nd¨¤i G¨­ngch¨¦ng) was a multi-disciplinary project commissioned by the People's Republic of China in 1996 to determine with accuracy the location and time frame of the Xia Dynasty, the Shang Dynasty and the Zhou Dynasty.

Some 200 experts took part in the project. The project results were released in November 2000.

Conventionally, the year 841 BC marked the start of the Gonghe regency, during the Zhou Dynasty, and the first year of the consecutive annual dating of Chinese history. The Xia Shang Zhou Chronology Project set out to provide exact dates for events prior to that. There have, however, been several controversies relating to the project.

Source: Wikipedia

Here is an interesting book about China:


Peter Hessler

Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Review:

In the heart of China's Sichuan province lies the small city of Fuling.

Surrounded by the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, Fuling has long been a place of continuity, far from the bustling political centers of Beijing and Shanghai.

But now Fuling is heading down a new path, and gradually, along with scores of other towns in this vast and ever-evolving country, it is becoming a place of change and vitality, tension and reform, disruption and growth.

As the people of Fuling hold on to the China they know, they are also opening up and struggling to adapt to a world in which their fate is uncertain.

Fuling's position at the crossroads came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1996, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. He found himself teaching English and American literature at the local college, discovering how Shakespeare and other classics look when seen through the eyes of students who have been raised in the Sichuan countryside and educated in Communist Party doctrine. His students, though, are the ones who taught him about the ways of Fuling ? and about the complex process of understanding that takes place when one is immersed in a radically different society.

As he learns the language and comes to know the people, Hessler begins to see that it is indeed a unique moment for Fuling. In its past is Communist China's troubled history ? the struggles of land reform, the decades of misguided economic policies, and the unthinkable damage of the Cultural Revolution ? and in the future is the Three Gorges Dam, which upon completion will partly flood thecity and force the resettlement of more than a million people. Making his way in the city and traveling by boat and train throughout Sichuan province and beyond, Hessler offers vivid descriptions of the people he meets, from priests to prostitutes and peasants to professors, and gives voice to their views. This is both an intimate personal story of his life in Fuling and a colorful, beautifully written account of the surrounding landscape and its history. Imaginative, poignant, funny, and utterly compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that, much like China itself, is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be.

One book that I enjoyed on a single event in China's history was Diana Preston's book; "A Brief History of the Boxer Rebellion: China's War on Foreigners, 1900".

by Diana Preston
Reviews:
"With meticulous research and passionate style, Diana Preston recreates the tragedy that consumed China a century ago." - Iris Chang, (author of The Rape of Nanking)

"Fascinating... penned with an obvious addiction to the delicious little details of history: whimsical, outrageous, and macabre." - Washington Post

"Outstanding... first-rate historical research." - Booklist

That looks like a great book Aussie Rick; I imagine that I should set up a thread on the Boxer Rebellion and you can also add this selection and review to that thread.

Hi Bentley, that's not a bad idea. I've moved this book across from another thread:


by Robert A. Bickers
Description:
In the early 19th century China remained almost untouched by Britain and other European powers - ferocious laws forbade all trade with the West outside one tiny area of Canton. Anyone teaching a European to speak Chinese was executed. But as new technology began to unbalance the relationship, foreigners gathered like wolves around the weakening Qing Empire. Would the Chinese suffer the fate of much of the rest of the world, carved into pieces by the Europeans? Or could they adapt rapidly enough to maintain their independence? Humiliated by military disaster, racked by rebellions that cost millions of lives and ultimately invaded during the Boxer Rebellion by thousands of foreign soldiers, it looked as though the colonial Scramble for Africa was about to be followed by the Scramble for China. This extraordinary new book tells this epic story both from the European (mainly British) point of view and the Chinese. The degradation of China in this period is crucially important to understanding China today, whose government and people are steeped in stories of this terrible time and never wish to appear weak again. The Scramble for China is both highly original and brilliantly written - it reimagines these encounters between two equally arrogant and scornful civilizations, whether from the point of view of a Chinese governor or a British soldier. It is an epic of squalor, romance, brutality and exoticism, and it changed the world.

Here is a book on my bookshelf that looks good:

F. W. Mote

One reviewer:
A major contribution to our present literature on the general historiography of late Imperial China. Not only is it eminently accessible to a wide nonspecialized intellectual public, it also provides a major corrective within the field to some of the tendencies that have dominated the writing of Chinese history. Mote has highly cogent things to say about the nature of what has been called the 'gentry' in China and highly relevant questions to raise about the notion of a demographic explosion in eighteenth-century China and examines many of the prevailing abstract conceptions which dominate the field. Yet, he vividly demonstrated how limited our effort has been to explore in depth the vast documentary materials available to us, which are supposed to provide the 'empirical data' for our models, paradigms, and structural theories. Mote's major contribution is his detailed account of the growing complexity of relations between the Chinese state and the surrounding East Asian world during the period 900-1800.
--Benjamin I. Schwartz, Harvard University

Bentley, would it makes sense to create a folder for the Communist period? I have a couple of Mao books I can share with members.

Yes, of course...there is a lot here. I think a thread on Mao would be appropriate here as well.

Brian and Aussie Rick, the threads you requested are set up.

Newly released book ~
by Henry Kissinger
In this sweeping and insightful history, Henry Kissinger turns for the first time at book-length to a country he has known intimately for decades, and whose modern relations with the West he helped shape. Drawing on historical records as well as his conversations with Chinese leaders over the past forty years, Kissinger examines how China has approached diplomacy, strategy, and negotiation throughout its history, and reflects on the consequences for the global balance of power in the 21st century.

Since no other country can claim a more powerful link to its ancient past and classical principles, any attempt to understand China's future world role must begin with an appreciation of its long history. For centuries, China rarely encountered other societies of comparable size and sophistication; it was the "Middle Kingdom," treating the peoples on its periphery as vassal states. At the same time, Chinese statesmen-facing threats of invasion from without, and the contests of competing factions within-developed a canon of strategic thought that prized the virtues of subtlety, patience, and indirection over feats of martial prowess.

In On China, Kissinger examines key episodes in Chinese foreign policy from the classical era to the present day, with a particular emphasis on the decades since the rise of Mao Zedong. He illuminates the inner workings of Chinese diplomacy during such pivotal events as the initial encounters between China and modern European powers, the formation and breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance, the Korean War, Richard Nixon's historic trip to Beijing, and three crises in the Taiwan Straits. Drawing on his extensive personal experience with four generation of Chinese leaders, he brings to life towering figures such as Mao, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping, revealing how their different visions have shaped China's modern destiny.

With his singular vantage on U.S.-China relations, Kissinger traces the evolution of this fraught but crucial relationship over the past 60 years, following its dramatic course from estrangement to strategic partnership to economic interdependence, and toward an uncertain future. With a final chapter on the emerging superpower's 21st-century world role, On China provides an intimate historical perspective on Chinese foreign affairs from one of the premier statesmen of the 20th century.

That looks like quite a good book.

Here is a new book due out next month covering a subject that is hardly noted in many other history books:

by Tonio Andrade
Description:
During the seventeenth century, Holland created the world's most dynamic colonial empire, outcompeting the British and capturing Spanish and Portuguese colonies. Yet, in the Sino-Dutch War - Europe's first war with China - the Dutch met their match in a colorful Chinese warlord named Koxinga. Part samurai, part pirate, he led his generals to victory over the Dutch and captured one of their largest and richest colonies - Taiwan. How did he do it? Examining the strengths and weaknesses of European and Chinese military techniques during the period, "Lost Colony" provides a balanced new perspective on long-held assumptions about Western power, Chinese might, and the nature of war. It has traditionally been asserted that Europeans of the era possessed more advanced science, technology, and political structures than their Eastern counterparts, but historians have recently contested this view, arguing that many parts of Asia developed on pace with Europe until 1800. While "Lost Colony" shows that the Dutch did indeed possess a technological edge thanks to the Renaissance fort and the broadside sailing ship, that edge was neutralized by the formidable Chinese military leadership. Thanks to a rich heritage of ancient war wisdom, Koxinga and his generals outfoxed the Dutch at every turn. Exploring a period when the military balance between Europe and China was closer than at any other point in modern history, "Lost Colony" reassesses an important chapter in world history and offers valuable and surprising lessons for contemporary times.

Here is a new book due out this month covering the Taiping Rebellion:


by Stephen R. Platt
Description:
A gripping account of China¡¯s nineteenth-century Taiping Rebellion, one of the largest civil wars in history. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom brims with unforgettable characters and vivid re-creations of massive and often gruesome battles¡ªa sweeping yet intimate portrait of the conflict that shaped the fate of modern China.

The story begins in the early 1850s, the waning years of the Qing dynasty, when word spread of a major revolution brewing in the provinces, led by a failed civil servant who claimed to be the son of God and brother of Jesus. The Taiping rebels drew their power from the poor and the disenfranchised, unleashing the ethnic rage of millions of Chinese against their Manchu rulers. This homegrown movement seemed all but unstoppable until Britain and the United States stepped in and threw their support behind the Manchus: after years of massive carnage, all opposition to Qing rule was effectively snuffed out for generations. Stephen R. Platt recounts these events in spellbinding detail, building his story on two fascinating characters with opposing visions for China¡¯s future: the conservative Confucian scholar Zeng Guofan, an accidental general who emerged as the most influential military strategist in China¡¯s modern history; and Hong Rengan, a brilliant Taiping leader whose grand vision of building a modern, industrial, and pro-Western Chinese state ended in tragic failure.

This is an essential and enthralling history of the rise and fall of the movement that, a century and a half ago, might have launched China on an entirely different path into the modern world.

Reviews:
¡°Platt has skillfully converted his erudition into an eminently general-interest treatment of what may have been the most lethal civil war in history.¡± - Gilbert Taylor, (Booklist)

¡°Splendid . . . An upheaval that led to the deaths of 20 million, dwarfing the simultaneously fought American Civil War, deserves to be better known, and Platt accomplishes this with a superb history of a 19th-century China faced with internal disorder and predatory Western intrusions.¡± - Publishers Weekly

¡°Stephen Platt¡¯s history of the Taiping rebellion in mid-19th century China sheds an authoritative and comprehensive window on a major event in world history that up until now has too often been consigned to a footnote in the West. It is a critically important achievement.¡± - Robert D. Kaplan, (author of Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power)

¡°Stephen Platt brings to vivid life a pivotal chapter in China¡¯s history that has been all but forgotten: the Taiping Rebellion in the mid-nineteenth century, which cost one of the greatest losses of life of any war in history. It had far-reaching consequences that still reverberate in contemporary China. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom is a fascinating work by a first-class historian and superb writer.¡± - Henry Kissinger

¡°A splendid example of finely calibrated historical narrative. The civil war that erupted in China between the early 1850s and 1864 was perhaps the bloodiest in human history; with a wealth of vivid detail, Platt shows how the fates of China¡¯s rulers and many millions of their subjects were manipulated by British diplomatic and commercial interests, as well as colored by the rebels¡¯ own unorthodox religious and political beliefs. It is a tragic and powerful story.¡± - Jonathan Spence, (author of The Search for Modern China)

I guess that I will bring it up since no one else seems to want to.



There is more discussion about what parts of this story are real and what is made up, as there are about the actual story itself. Interesting read, I guess it would have to be to have multiple video games made based on it.

Thanks James. Don't forget to add an author:

by Luo Guanzhong

Jill wrote: "James.....don't forget to add the author link and photo if available.

linkLuo Guanzhong"

Luo Guanzhong died before Shakespeare was born...but I will try and remember to add photos when possible.

;)

There are 4 books considered to be the 4 Great Classic Chinese Novels.

Cao Xueqin(no photo)

Shi Nai'an(no photo)

Luo Guanzhong(no photo)

Wu Cheng'en(no photo)

There is a 5th one called

Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng(no photo)

but it is not included with the other 4 because it has been banned for centuries due to the sexual content. Not sure if it is still banned in China or not.

Hello James, we have citation rules, book cover, author's photo and author's link. Sometimes the author's photo is not available - just say no photo.

by Cao Xueqin

by Nai'an Shi (no photo)

by Luo Guanzhong (no photo)

by Wu Cheng'en

by Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng (no photo)

All of them were available James, and I have given you examples of how they should be cited. If you go back and correct message 25, I will delete this post.

Bentley wrote: "Hello James, we have citation rules, book cover, author's photo and author's link. Sometimes the author's photo is not available - just say no photo.

b..."

There is a photo of a statue and a painting. Neither are photos of the author. If you want artist representations of the author then I can probably find some of all of the authors.

If you want me to further amend message 25 by adding artist representations and photos of statues I will, but I stress that these are not photos of the author.

James, Bentley is referring to the author photos using the 'add book/author' feature above the comment box, the same way you added the book covers. Once you have added the cover, go back into the add book/author feature and click on the author tab at the top. You can locate the author photo (if there is one on goodreads) and the author link using the radio buttons at the bottom. That is all we ask. You don't have to track down photos of them elsewhere, just through the links.

If you have any other questions about this feel free to ask any of the moderators. There are also detailed instructions if you need them on the mechanics of the board thread. Thanks for your additions.

Marco Polo

Perfect! Many thanks.

Okay. So in this case the "photo" is actually a painting not a photo, but I understand what you want. If there is a "photo" of an author with the accuracy suspect, who does one point this out to?

James wrote: "Bentley wrote: "Hello James, we have citation rules, book cover, author's photo and author's link. Sometimes the author's photo is not available - just say no photo.

[bookcover:Dream of the Red C..."

James, message 26 showed what I found; yes the goodreads photos can come up as photos, paintings, art rendition of the author, etc.

So placing no photo by all of them does not make any sense. But you do have some improvements.

If you think that a photo of an author is incorrect point it out on the goodreads librarian group or write to goodreads support.

So Cao Xueqin has a rendition which I showed you and so does Wu Cheng'en. Yes, if you amend message 25 by adding the artists' representations etc (what goodreads has and what we like to also see) then of course we will consider it done.
If they are not representations of the author, please let the goodreads staff know and of course forward them proof of your assertions. I am sure that they will fix it for you.

I will probably add this to my TBR:

Jonathan Fenby

Info:
No country on earth has suffered a more bitter history in modern times than China. In the second half of the nineteenth century, it was viewed as doomed to extinction. Its imperial rulers, heading an anachronistic regime, were brought low by enormous revolts, shifting social power patterns, republican revolutionaries, Western incursions to "split the Chinese melon" and a disastrous defeat by Japan.

The presence of predatory foreigners has often been blamed for China's troubles, but the much greater cause came from within China itself. In the early twentieth century, the empire was succeeded by warlordism on a massive scale, internal divisions, incompetent rule, savage fighting between the government and the Communists, and a fourteen-year invasion from Japan. Four years of civil war after 1945 led to the Maoist era, with its purges and repression; the disastrous Great Leap Forward; a famine that killed tens of millions; and the Cultural Revolution.

Yet from this long trauma, China has emerged amazingly in the last three decades as an economic powerhouse set to play a major global political role, its future posing one of the great questions for the twenty-first century as it grapples with enormous internal challenges. Understanding how that transformation came about and what China constitutes today means understanding its epic journey since 1850 and recognizing how the past influences the present.

Jonathan Fenby tells this turbulent story with brilliance and insight, spanning a unique historical panorama, with an extraordinary cast of characters and a succession of huge events. As Confucius said, To see the future, one must grasp the past.

Looks interesting Bryan.

After finally achieving what had eluded even his grandfather Genghis Khan - the conquest of China-and inheriting the world's largest navy, Kublai Khan set his sights on Japan. Yet within a few years his armada was wiped out and in the centuries since, its destruction by the kamikaze ( a term that became familiar during WWII) became legend. The author, an archaeologist and historian went diving with a Japanese team to find the remains of the invasion fleet and tells the story moving between the present and the past to learn what actually sank the Mongol navy. A fascinating adventure tale.

James P. Delgado

In recent years top American politicians have freely and voluntarily issued a wide variety of apologies to the heads of other nations across the globe. China is now demanding that America apologize for any possible involvement with their latest human rights controversies. Demand is a strong word and with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton currently in China it will be interesting to see how this situation plays out over the days, months and years ahead. To appease many countries the United States is known to simply offer monetary contributions as tokens of goodwill however China has accumulated plenty of our money and wishes for America to bend upon the principles and values that our founding fathers instituted.

One book that I found interesting is "China: The Fragile Superpower" by Susan L. Shirk. Susan L. Shirk

Mark they are all about saving face but do not care about others saving theirs.

The great Sinologist Joseph Needham is a legend for his book cited below, an encyclopedic account of China's achievements in science and technology. But I have to call your attention to his biography, also cited below and he is a great subject. A Cambridge University polymath who made his youthful mark as a biochemist, he was also a nudist, a performer of English folk dances involving ankle bells and sticks, an accordion player, and an active Communist. His happy marriage to chemist Dorothy Needham survived his lifelong passion for his Chinese mistress, a biochemist who taught him Chinese and collaborated with him on his master project.


Science and Civilization in China (no book cover available) by Joseph Needham



by Simon Winchester

Gee at first I thought you were talking about the author (lol) and I was saying to myself looking at his photo - he does not look like the kind of guy who would wear ankle bells and sticks (lol). Never heard any of this about this author (lol)

Hilarious......and you are right, I can't quite see him with ankle bells and sticks!!!! And I don't think he is a nudist but maybe...........

I am aware that discussions are for books and not politics, but the Chen Guangcheng situation is extremely interesting and certainly books pertaining to human rights and his pursuit for freedom will follow in the future.

Yes of course Mark, please feel free to add as many as you like here. Are there some that you would like to suggest?

I'm sure there are some current great books available on human rights. I was actually refering to the fact that books will be writen about this incident in the future.

I understand and what I was indicating was that I know that many have been written already; but of course more will come.

Since the doors were opened to China through President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger most presidents and their administration dance around the tough issues. Over the past 40 years President Reagan stands out as one who was known for being firm and taking tough stances for freedom through plain talk.

Thursday , October 29 (1981) ¡°¡­.There is a real push going on. China is virtually delivering an ultimatum re arms to Taiwan. I don¡¯t like ultimatums. We have a moral obligation & until a peaceful settlement is reached between the mainland & Taiwan we¡¯re going to meet that obligation.
Ronald Reagan

Yes, that was the right thing to say at the right time. However, maybe Reagan did not have a bunch of loans that could be called in.

I do wish that the US could go back to the old time values and beliefs.

It seems every president has said they would stand up with Taiwan against China. Actually sitting around a table and working on a solution, well, not so much...

Exactly none of them wanted to talk about the moose on the table.

I was wondering if there could be another sub-category set up for China - "Republican Period" which would cover 1911 to 1949. The book I am currently reading doesn't fall within any of the categories set up.

by Barbara W. Tuchman

Thanks for considering!
Angela

Thanks, Angela, indeed, a classic.

Barbara W. Tuchman