Patricia Buckley Ebrey

More populous than any other country on earth, China also occupies a unique place in our modern world for the continuity of its history and culture. In this sumptuously illustrated single-volume history, noted historian Patricia Ebrey traces the origins of Chinese culture from prehistoric times to the present. She follows its development from the rise of Confucianism, Buddhism, and the great imperial dynasties to the Mongol, Manchu, and Western intrusions and the modern communist state. Her scope is phenomenal--embracing Chinese arts, culture, economics, society and its treatment of women, foreign policy, emigration, and politics, including the key uprisings of 1919 and 1989 in Tiananmen Square. Both a comprehensive introduction to an extraordinary civilization, and an expert exploration of the continuities and disjunctures of Chinese history, Professor Ebrey's book has become an indispensable guide to China past and present. Patricia Ebrey is Professor of East Asian Studies and History and the author of Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook (1993).

The Cambridge Illustrated History of China

This is a collection of essays by one of the leading scholars of Chinese history, it explores features of the Chinese family, gender and kinship systems and places them in a historical context.

Women and the Family in Chinese History

Anne Walthall

James B. Palais

"A comprehensive history of East Asia, including extensive coverage of the region's cultural, political, economic, and social history. Coverage focuses on the narratives of China, Japan, and Korea while examining the history of each society in a larger, global context."--Back cover.

A Cultural, Social, and Political History

East Asia

The Cambridge Illustrated History of China is an illuminating account of the full sweep of Chinese civilisation - from prehistoric times to the intellectual ferment of the Warring States Period, through the rise and fall of the imperial dynasties, to the modern communist state. Written by a leading scholar and lavishly illustrated, its narrative draws together everything from the influence of key intellectual figures, to political innovations, art and material culture, family and religious life, not to mention wars and modern conflicts. This third revised edition includes new archaeological discoveries and gives fuller treatment of environmental history and Chinese interaction with the wider world, placing China in global context. The Qing dynasty is now covered in two chapters, while the final chapter brings the story into the twenty-first century, covering the transformation of China into one of the world's leading economies and the challenges it faces. Lively and highly visual, this book will be appreciated by anyone interested in Chinese history.

Maggie Bickford

Huizong was an exceptional emperor who lived through momentous times. A man of many talents, he wrote poetry and created his own distinctive calligraphy style; collected paintings, calligraphies, and antiquities on a large scale; promoted Daoism; and involved himself in the training of court artists, the layout of gardens, and reforms of music and medicine. The quarter century when Huizong ruled is just as fascinating. The greatly enlarged scholar-official class had come into its own but was deeply divided by factional strife. The long struggle between the Chinese state and its northern neighbors entered a new phase when Song proved unable to defend itself against the newly emergent Jurchen state of Jin. Huizong and thousands of members of his family and court were taken captive, and the Song dynasty had to recreate itself in the South.

The Politics of Culture and the Culture of Politics

Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China

Paul Jakov Smith

This collection provides new ways to understand how state power was exercised during the overlapping Liao, Song, Jin, and Yuan dynasties. Through a set of case studies, State Power in China, 900-1325 examines large questions concerning dynastic legitimacy, factional strife, the relationship between the literati and the state, and the value of centralization. How was state power exercised? Why did factional strife periodically become ferocious? Which problems did reformers seek to address? Could subordinate groups resist the state? How did politics shape the sources that survive? The nine essays in this volume explore key elements of state power, ranging from armies, taxes, and imperial patronage to factional struggles, officials’ personal networks, and ways to secure control of conquered territory. Drawing on new sources, research methods, and historical perspectives, the contributors illuminate the institutional side of state power while confronting evidence of instability and change—of ways to gain, lose, or exercise power.

State Power in China, 900-1325

Scott Pearce

Audrey G. Spiro

Professor of History and Chinese Studies Patricia Buckley Ebrey

But despite the violence and volatility, these centuries were a time of extraordinary cultural flowering, which reshaped and deeply enriched Chinese civilization. Culture and cultural change are the primary focuses of the eight essays in this volume.".

Culture and Power in the Reconstitution of the Chinese Realm, 200-600

The Sung Dynasty (960-1279) was a paradoxical era for Chinese women. This was a time when footbinding spread, and Confucian scholars began to insist that it was better for a widow to starve than to remarry. Yet there were also improvements in women's status in marriage and property rights. In this thoroughly original work, one of the most respected scholars of premodern China brings to life what it was like to be a woman in Sung times, from having a marriage arranged, serving parents-in-law, rearing children, and coping with concubines, to deciding what to do if widowed. Focusing on marriage, Patricia Buckley Ebrey views family life from the perspective of women. She argues that the ideas, attitudes, and practices that constituted marriage shaped women's lives, providing the context in which they could interpret the opportunities open to them, negotiate their relationships with others, and accommodate or resist those around them. Ebrey questions whether women's situations actually deteriorated in the Sung, linking their experiences to widespread social, political, economic, and cultural changes of this period. She draws from advice books, biographies, government documents, and medical treatises to show that although the family continued to be patrilineal and patriarchal, women found ways to exert their power and authority. No other book explores the history of women in pre-twentieth-century China with such energy and depth.

Marriage and the Lives of Chinese Women in the Sung Period

The Inner Quarters

Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks

Clare Haru Crowston

John Buckler

John P. McKay

Roger B. Beck

Bennett D. Hill

More than any other text, A History of World Societies introduces students to the families, foods, workplaces, religions, and diversions of peoples of the past through lively, descriptive writing and extensive primary sources that give voice to a wide range of individuals. This hallmark treatment of social history combines with strong political, cultural, and economic coverage and a clear, easy-to-manage organization to provide students with the most vivid account available of what life was like throughout human history. The Eighth Edition welcomes to the author team Merry Wiesner-Hanks and Clare Crowston, experienced world-history teachers and highly regarded scholars who bring additional attention to gender and cultural history. It also expands the text's global perspective by strengthening coverage of non-Western topics and comparisons among world societies. A fresh, colorful look and a completely new map program showcase a narrative that the authors judiciously shortened for even greater power and accessibility. Bedford/St. Martin’s is proud to have recently acquired the stellar McKay franchise in World History and Western Civilization. These wonderful books fit well with our publishing philosophy at Bedford/St. Martin’s, emphasizing innovation, quality, and a focus on the needs of students and instructors. We hope to contribute to their future success with the care and attention to detail we give every book we publish.

A History of World Societies, Volume 2: Since 1500

China was the most advanced country in the world when Huizong ascended the throne in 1100 CE. Artistically gifted, he guided the Song Dynasty toward cultural greatness but is known to posterity as a political failure who lost the throne to Jurchen invaders and died their prisoner. In this comprehensive biography, Patricia Ebrey corrects the prevailing view of Huizong as decadent and negligent, recasting him as a ruler ambitious in pursuing glory for his flourishing realm. After a rocky start trying to overcome political animosities at court, Huizong turned his attention to the good he could do. He greatly expanded the court's charitable ventures, founding schools, hospitals, orphanages, and paupers' cemeteries. Surrounding himself with poets, painters, and musicians, he built palaces, temples, and gardens of unsurpassed splendor. Often overlooked, however, is the importance of Daoism in Huizong's life. He treated spiritual masters with great deference, wrote scriptural commentaries, and urged his subjects to adopt his beliefs and practices. This devotion to the Daoist vision of sacred kingship eventually alienated the Confucian mainstream and compromised Huizong's ability to govern. Ebrey's lively biography adds new dimensions of understanding to a passionate, paradoxical ruler who, many centuries later, inspires both admiration and disapproval.

Emperor Huizong

"Opening up questions about women's lives, about gender, about why we read history at all and how we write it, Patricia Buckley Ebrey has made The Inner Quarters a place we need to enter."—from the Foreword

Peter N. Gregory

The Tang (618-907) and Sung (960-1279) dynasties were times of great change in China. The economy grew spectacularly, the population doubled, migration brought more and more people to the fertile south, and printing led to a great increase in the availability of books. Buddhism became a fully sinicized religion that penetrated deeply into ordinary life. New cults and sects appeared and flourished. Chan became the dominant force within institutional Buddhism, Celestial Heart and Thunder Rites teachings gained prominence within Taoism, local gods such as Wen-chang came to be worshiped all over the country, and office-holding gods, such as the gods of city walls, became a common feature of the popular pantheon. Even Neo-Confucianism, often thought of simply as an intellectual movement, was in many ways like a new sect, its followers asked to alter fundamentally their patterns of daily life and even to worship at shrines to Confucian heroes. How were changes in the religions of the Chinese people implicated in the momentous social and cultural changes of this period? This volume represents a collaborative effort of nine scholars of Chinese religion, history, and thought to begin addressing this question. Their separate chapters vividly convey the diversity of the Tang and Sung religious world: gods that communicate through spirit writing; scholars who use veneration of maligned officials as subtle forms of political protest; local residents who try to enhance their power by asserting the power of their gods or getting titles for them; officials who seek the most up-to-date techniques to master occult forces. Still the larger goal of the authors is to contribute toward a more integrated understanding of Chinese culture and the ways it has changed. Basing themselves on close study of often difficult texts, each author has looked for evidence of interconnections: links between social and religious changes, between political or economic developments and religious ideas or practices, between folk religion and institutional religion, between Confucian philosophy and changes in the social and religious landscape, and between the ways religious and secular groups were organized. Taken together, these nine chapters present a new, fuller, and more nuanced view of the Chinese religions in this period of change.

Religion and Society in T'ang and Sung China

Written by top scholars in the field, PRE-MODERN EAST ASIA: A CULTURAL, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL HISTORY, VOLUME I: To 1800, 3E delivers a comprehensive cultural, political, economic, and intellectual history of East Asia, while focusing on the narratives and histories of China, Japan, and Korea in a larger, global context. Full color inserts on such topics as food, clothing, and art objects illustrate the rich artistic heritage of East Asia. A range of primary source documents is included throughout, while intriguing biographical sketches highlight the lives of popular figures as well as ordinary people. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.

Pre-Modern East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History, Volume I: To 1800

Bennett David Hill

'A History of World Societies' introduces students to the global past through social history, and provides insights into the stories and voices of the people who lived it. Thoroughly revised, the 9th edition now contains more global comparisons, documents, features and activities to aid and reinforce students' learning.

A History of World Societies

Written by top scholars in the field, EAST ASIA: A CULTURAL, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL HISTORY, VOLUME II: FROM 1600, 3E delivers a comprehensive cultural, political, economic, and intellectual history of East Asia, while focusing on the narratives and histories of China, Japan, and Korea in a larger, global context. Full color inserts on such topics as food, clothing, and art objects illustrate the rich artistic heritage of East Asia. A range of primary source documents spotlights women's independence, students-turned-soldiers, and other stirring issues, while intriguing biographical sketches throughout highlight the lives of popular figures and ordinary people alike. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.

East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History, Volume II: From 1600

Rubie S. Watson

Until now our understanding of marriage in China has been based primarily on observations made during the twentieth century. The research of ten eminent scholars presented here provides a new vision of marriage in Chinese history, exploring the complex interplay between marriage and the social, political, economic, and gender inequalities that have so characterized Chinese society.

Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society

Ping Yao

Cong Ellen Zhang

"Tens of thousands of epitaphs or funerary biographies survive from imperial China. Written to be engraved on stone and placed in a grave, they typically focus on the deceased's biographical information and exemplary words and deeds, expressing survivors' longing for the dead. Epitaphs provide glimpses of the lives of people who are not well-documented in such sources as the dynastic histories and local gazetteers: women, men who did not leave a mark politically, and children. This anthology makes available a set of funerary biographies covering nearly two thousand years of history, from the Han dynasty through the nineteenth century, selected for their potential as teaching material for courses on Chinese history, literature, and women's studies as well as world history. Funerary biographies, due to their inclusion of telling details about personal conduct, family life, local conditions, and social, cultural, and religious practices, can illustrate ways of thinking and the realities of daily life. Since most funerary biographies can be read and analyzed on multiple levels, they have the potential to stimulate discussion of topics such as the emotional tenor of family life, rituals associated with death, whether the values seen in these biographies should be called Confucian, ways to analyze women's lives from sources written by men, and how to use sources that can be assumed to be biased. These biographies will be especially effective when combined with more readily available primary sources such as official documents, religious and intellectual discourses, and anecdotal stories, promising to generate interesting discussion about literary genre, the ways historians use sources, and how writers shape their accounts"--

An Anthology of Remembered Lives

Chinese Funerary Biographies

Chinese Civilization sets the standard for supplementary texts in Chinese history courses. With newly expanded material, personal documents, social records, laws, and documents that historians mistakenly ignore, the sixth edition is even more useful than its classic predecessor. A complete and thorough introduction to Chinese history and culture.

A Sourcebook, 2nd Ed

Chinese Civilization

Jerry Davila

Long praised by instructors and students for its accessible regional chapter structure, readability, and sustained attention to social history, the Eleventh Edition of A History of World Societies includes even more features and tools to engage today's students and save instructors time. This edition includes more help with historical thinking skills, an expanded primary source program in print and online, and the best and latest scholarship throughout.

Patricia Buckley Ebrey

About

Books

Join the club