A Political Life in Ming China

A Political Life in Ming China PDF

Author: John W. Dardess

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2013-09-25

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 1442223782

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This fascinating history uncovers the hidden political world of Ming China, exploring how the most powerful man in mid-sixteenth-century China steered the empire through the worst crises it had ever faced. Distinguished scholar John W. Dardess traces the life of Chief Grand Secretary Xu Jie (1503–1583), the leading politician-statesman in the China of his time. Drawing on years of research, Dardess uses Xu Jie’s extensive letters to officials in the field and reports of conversations with the emperors he served to show just how difficult it was to defend the empire. His correspondence vividly shows how he organized its defenses and shepherded it through the twin crises of raids along the thousands of miles of continental and maritime frontiers in the 1550s and 1560s. The book traces his origins, his rise to power, and his engagement with the leading Confucian school of his time, that of Wang Yangming and his electrifying ethical teachings. Dardess describes how Xu used those teachings to build a following and leverage his way up the Ming bureaucracy. He shows how Xu was able both to suppress corruption and liberalize bureaucratic procedures. At the same time, the book highlights the psychological strain Xu suffered as a result and the vindictive and nearly lethal attacks directed at him after his retirement. Arguing that Xu was instrumental to the survival of the Ming dynasty through a long period of severe stress, Dardess tells his long-neglected story in rich and engrossing detail.

Ming China, 1368-1644

Ming China, 1368-1644 PDF

Author: John W. Dardess

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 173

ISBN-13: 1442204907

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This engaging, deeply informed book provides the first concise history of one of China's most important eras. Leading scholar John W. Dardess offers a thematically organized political, social, and economic exploration of China from 1368 to 1644. He examines how the Ming dynasty was able to endure for 276 years, illuminating Ming foreign relations and border control, the lives and careers of its sixteen emperors, its system of governance and the kinds of people who served it, its great class of literati, and finally the mass outlawry that, in unhappy conjunction with the Manchu invasions from outside, ended the once-mighty dynasty in the mid-seventeenth century. The Ming witnessed the beginning of China's contact with the West, and its story will fascinate all readers interested in global as well as Asian history.

The Confusions of Pleasure

The Confusions of Pleasure PDF

Author: Timothy Brook

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1998-05-18

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 052092407X

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The Ming dynasty was the last great Chinese dynasty before the Manchu conquest in 1644. During that time, China, not Europe, was the center of the world: the European voyages of exploration were searching not just for new lands but also for new trade routes to the Far East. In this book, Timothy Brook eloquently narrates the changing landscape of life over the three centuries of the Ming (1368-1644), when China was transformed from a closely administered agrarian realm into a place of commercial profits and intense competition for status. The Confusions of Pleasure marks a significant departure from the conventional ways in which Chinese history has been written. Rather than recounting the Ming dynasty in a series of political events and philosophical achievements, it narrates this longue durée in terms of the habits and strains of everyday life. Peppered with stories of real people and their negotiations of a rapidly changing world, this book provides a new way of seeing the Ming dynasty that not only contributes to the scholarly understanding of the period but also provides an entertaining and accessible introduction to Chinese history for anyone.

The Art of Being Governed

The Art of Being Governed PDF

Author: Michael Szonyi

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2019-08-27

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 0691197245

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One of Choice Reviews' Outstanding Academic Titles of 2018--an innovative look at how families in Ming dynasty China negotiated military and political obligations to the state.tate.

Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos

Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos PDF

Author: Sarah Schneewind

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-10-26

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 1684170990

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"""Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos"", the first book focusing on premortem shrines in any era of Chinese history, places the institution at the intersection of politics and religion. When a local official left his post, grateful subjects housed an image of him in a temple, requiting his grace: that was the ideal model. By Ming times, the “living shrine” was legal, old, and justified by readings of the classics.Sarah Schneewind argues that the institution could invite and pressure officials to serve local interests; the policies that had earned a man commemoration were carved into stone beside the shrine. Since everyone recognized that elite men might honor living officials just to further their own careers, premortem shrine rhetoric stressed the role of commoners, who embraced the opportunity by initiating many living shrines. This legitimate, institutionalized political voice for commoners expands a scholarly understanding of “public opinion” in late imperial China, aligning it with the efficacy of deities to create a nascent political conception Schneewind calls the “minor Mandate of Heaven.” Her exploration of premortem shrine theory and practice illuminates Ming thought and politics, including the Donglin Party’s battle with eunuch dictator Wei Zhongxian and Gu Yanwu’s theories."

More Than the Great Wall

More Than the Great Wall PDF

Author: John W. Dardess

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2019-10-18

Total Pages: 573

ISBN-13: 1538135116

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This groundbreaking book provides the first comprehensive analysis of Ming China’s pursuit of national security along its 1,700 miles of northern frontier. Drawing on a wealth of original sources, John Dardess vividly portrays how Ming China’s emperors, officials, and commanders in the field thought, argued, and made decisions in real time as they worked to defend their country. Despite common perceptions of the central role of the so-called Great Wall of China, Dardess convincingly shows that the wall was but a minor piece in a much bigger effort to battle Tatar looting. Dardess immerses readers in the day-to-day world of the Ming as he explores the question of how leaders kept their country safe over the 276 years the dynasty ruled.

The Search for Modern China

The Search for Modern China PDF

Author: Jonathan D. Spence

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 1054

ISBN-13: 9780393307801

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In this widely acclaimed history of modern China, Jonathan Spence achieves a fine blend of narrative richness and efficiency. The Search for Modern China offers a matchless introduction to China's history.

State versus Gentry in Late Ming Dynasty China, 1572–1644

State versus Gentry in Late Ming Dynasty China, 1572–1644 PDF

Author: H. Miller

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2008-12-22

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 0230617875

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This book looks at the bitter factionalism in the last days of China's Ming Dynasty as an ideological struggle between scholar-officials who believed that sovereignty resided in the imperial state and those who believed that it resided with the learned gentry.

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