Chinese History

05 Sep 2011 14:02

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Recommended:
• Derek Bodde, Chinese Thought, Society and Science: The Intellectual and Social Background of Science and Technology in Pre-Modern China [I can't figure out what a lot of these essays have to do with science or technology, but they make for a fascinating ramble around many aspects of pre-modern Chinese culture and society.]
• Mark Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past [Review will be finished Any Lifetime Now, Dammit]
• Joseph R. Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate
  • I: The Problem of Intellectual Continuity
  • II: The Problem of Monarchical Decay
  • III: The Problem of Historical Significance
• Susan Naquin, Millenarian Rebellion in China: the Eight Trigrams Uprising of 1813
• Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China
• Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy [Review: King Cotton and King Coal Raise the West]
• Jonathan Spence
  • The Gate of Heavenly Peace
  • God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan [Review]
  • Mao Zedong
  • The Search for Modern China
  • Treason by the Book
• Wen Fong (ed.), The Great Bronze Age of China

To read:
• Peter Bol, "This Culture of Ours": Intellectual Transitions in T'ang and Sung China
• Herrlee Glessner Creel, The Birth of China: A Study of the Formative Period of Chinese Civilization [Now-antiquated but then-pathbreaking book on the Shang excavations]
• Mark C. Elliott, The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China
• Mark Elvin, The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China [Blurb]
• Joseph W. Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising [Blurb]
• Joseph W. Esherick and Mary Backus Rankin (eds.), Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance [Online]
• Hsiao-Tung Fei, China's Gentry: Essays in Rural-Urban Relations
• Hill Gates, China's Motor: A Thousand Years of Petty Capitalism
• Jacques Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization
• David Graff, Medieval Chinese Warfare, 300--900 ["connects military affairs with political and social developments to show how China's history was shaped by war. The first survey of medieval Chinese military history to be published in English"]
• Francois Jullien, The Propensity of Things: Toward a History of Efficacy in China
• Louise Levanthes, When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405--1433
• Henri Maspero, China in Antiquity
• Ichisada Miyazaki, China's Examination Hell: The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China
• Mote, Imperial China, 900--1900
• Sachiko Murata, William C. Chittick and Tu Weiming, The Sage Learning of Liu Zhi: Islamic Thought in Confucian Terms [blurb]
• Edward L. Shaughnessy, Before Confucius: Studies in the Creation of the Chinese Classics
• Leo K. Shin, The Making of the Chinese State: Ethnicity and Expansion on the Ming Borderlands [Blurb]
• Spence
  • Chinese Roundabout: Essays in History and Culture
  • The Death of Woman Wang
  • Emperor of China : Self-Portrait of K'ang-Hsi
  • The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci
  • The Question of Hu
• R. Bin Wong, China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience
• Pei-yu Wu, The Confucian's Progress: Autobiographical Writings in Traditional China
• Angela Zito, Of Body and Brush: Grand Sacrifice as Text/Performance in Eighteenth-Century China