Peking

Peking PDF

Author: Susan Naquin

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2001-01-15

Total Pages: 862

ISBN-13: 9780520923454

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The central character in Susan Naquin's extraordinary new book is the city of Peking during the Ming and Qing periods. Using the city's temples as her point of entry, Naquin carefully excavates Peking's varied public arenas, the city's transformation over five centuries, its human engagements, and its rich cultural imprint. This study shows how modern Beijing's glittering image as China's great and ancient capital came into being and reveals the shifting identities of a much more complex past, one whose rich social and cultural history Naquin splendidly evokes. Temples, by providing a place where diverse groups could gather without the imprimatur of family or state, made possible a surprising assortment of community-building and identity-defining activities. By revealing how religious establishments of all kinds were used for fairs, markets, charity, tourism, politics, and leisured sociability, Naquin shows their decisive impact on Peking and, at the same time, illuminates their little-appreciated role in Chinese cities generally. Lacking most of the conventional sources for urban history, she has relied particularly on a trove of commemorative inscriptions that express ideas about the relationship between human beings and gods, about community service and public responsibility, about remembering and being remembered. The result is a book that will be essential reading in the field of Chinese studies for years to come.

History of European Botanical Discoveries in China

History of European Botanical Discoveries in China PDF

Author: Emil Bretschneider

Publisher: SEVERUS Verlag

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 645

ISBN-13: 3863471652

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"It has been attempted in the following pages to supply the want of a work of reference, in which botanists dealing with Chinese plants preserved in European herbariums might find some particulars regarding the history of these collections, of which the labels affixed to the herbarium specimens generally give only an imperfect account." Emil Bretschneider (1833-1901) became famous among researchers for his valuable contributions to the field of sinology. His versatile approach - he was a physician and botanist as well as a sinologist - and his familiarity with Chinese literature distinguished him from his colleagues, many of whom were unable to read sources firsthand. Combining his abilities in botany and sinology, Bretschneider comprises an extensive history of Chinese plants and how they found their way to Europe. From the earliest accounts by Marco Polo, to the groundbreaking work of Carl Linnaeus, to the period of the Opium wars between England and China, this volume covers the works of European botanists up until 1860. Bretschneider does not limit his scope to China proper, but includes Mongolia, Tibet, Korea, and other regions, making this a uniquely comprehensive guide to European research on Asian plants.

Yuan

Yuan PDF

Author: Nancy Steinhardt

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2024-01-09

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0691240167

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A monumental illustrated survey of the architecture of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century China The Yuan dynasty endured for a century, leaving behind an architectural legacy without equal, from palaces, temples, and pagodas to pavilions, tombs, and stages. With a history enlivened by the likes of Khubilai Khan and Marco Polo, this spectacular empire spanned the breadth of China and far, far beyond, but its rulers were Mongols. Yuan presents the first comprehensive study in English of the architecture of China under Mongol rule. In this richly illustrated book, Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt looks at cities such as the legendary Shangdu—inspiration for Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Xanadu—as well as the architecture the Mongols encountered on their routes of conquest. She examines the buildings and monuments of diverse faiths in China during the period, from Buddhist and Daoist to Confucian, Islamic, and Christian, as well as unusual structures such as observatories, archways, stone and metal buildings, and sarcophaguses. Steinhardt dispels long-standing views of the Mongols as destroyers of cities and architecture across Asia, showing how the khans and their families built more than they tore down. She demonstrates that the stipulations of the Chinese building system were powerful and resilient enough to guide the architecture that rose under Mongolian rule. Drawing on Steinhardt’s groundbreaking textual research in numerous languages as well as her pioneering fieldwork at sites across East Asia, Yuan will become the standard reference on this critical period of cultural and artistic exchange.

The Search for a Vanishing Beijing

The Search for a Vanishing Beijing PDF

Author: M.A. Aldrich

Publisher: Hong Kong University Press

Published: 2008-03-01

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 9789622097773

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"The Search for a Vanishing Beijing weaves the genres of travel essays and travel guides into a comprehensive narrative about the cultural mosaic of the capital of China.

The Borders of Chinese Architecture

The Borders of Chinese Architecture PDF

Author: Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2022-03-22

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 0674269578

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An internationally acclaimed expert explains why Chinese-style architecture has remained so consistent for two thousand years, no matter where it is built. For the last two millennia, an overwhelming number of Chinese buildings have been elevated on platforms, supported by pillars, and covered by ceramic-tile roofs. Less obvious features, like the brackets connecting the pillars to roof frames, also have been remarkably constant. What makes the shared features more significant, however, is that they are present in Buddhist, Daoist, Confucian, and Islamic milieus; residential, funerary, and garden structures; in Japan, Korea, Mongolia, and elsewhere. How did Chinese-style architecture maintain such standardization for so long, even beyond China’s borders? Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt examines the essential features of Chinese architecture and its global transmission and translation from the predynastic age to the eighteenth century. Across myriad political, social, and cultural contexts within China and throughout East Asia, certain design and construction principles endured. Builders never abandoned perishable wood in favor of more permanent building materials, even though Chinese engineers knew how to make brick and stone structures in the last millennium BCE. Chinese architecture the world over is also distinctive in that it was invariably accomplished by anonymous craftsmen. And Chinese buildings held consistently to the plan of the four-sided enclosure, which both afforded privacy and differentiated sacred interior space from an exterior understood as the sphere of profane activity. Finally, Chinese-style buildings have always and everywhere been organized along straight lines. Taking note of these and other fascinating uniformities, The Borders of Chinese Architecture offers an accessible and authoritative overview of a tradition studiously preserved across time and space.

古代北京与西方文明

古代北京与西方文明 PDF

Author: 欧阳哲生著

Publisher: BEIJING BOOK CO. INC.

Published: 2021-11-09

Total Pages: 955

ISBN-13:

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本书着重探讨了西人来京的路线、途径,在京居住、生活、活动和通信手段,在京与朝野士人的交往,对北京建筑、风俗、地理、历史的观察和研究,对中国政治、经济、文化、军事情报的搜集和窥探,全景式地深度透析西方视野里的北京形象。