A richly illustrated book featuring recent revelations about China's first emperor, Ying Zheng, and his famous burial site containing an army of life-size terracotta soldiers and other artifacts First discovered by a farmer in 1974, the burial site…
The Eurocentric conventional wisdom holds that the West is unique in having a multi-state system in international relations and liberal democracy in state-society relations. At the same time, the Sinocentric perspective believes that China is destin…
Relations between Inner Asian nomads and Chinese are a continuous theme throughout Chinese history. By investigating the formation of nomadic cultures, by analyzing the evolution of patterns of interaction along China’s frontiers, and by explo…
Examine the lives of commoners and kings from the Middle Kingdom with You Are There! Ancient China 305 BC. Take a tour of the different dynasties and important aspects of Ancient Chinese culture, such as calligraphy, language, philosophers, Confuciu…
A vivid chronicle of events in the feudal states of China between 722 and 468 B.C., the Tso Chuan has long been considered both a major historical document and and an influential literary model. Covering over 250 years, these historical narratives f…
This book explores the roles of agricultural development and advancing social complexity in the processes of state formation in China. Over a period of about 10,000 years, it follows evolutionary trajectories of society from the last Palaeolithic hu…
Ivestigates the development of social complexity and the changes of modes of pottery production from the Neolithic to early Bronze Age in the Yuanqu Basin, north-central China. The research focuses on the development of specialised pottery productio…
The Great Wall of China spans more than 10,000 miles It was built over many centuries, and it remains one of the world's most famous landmarks today. This title for young readers explores the Great Wall's original purpose, how it was built, and how…
Ancient Chinese society developed a sophisticated and complex bureaucracy which is still in operation today and which had its pristine form in the government of the Western Zhou from 1045 to 771 BC. Li Feng, one of the leading scholars of the period…
From pasta to paper, the inventions of the Ancient Chinese remain part of everyday life in our modern world. Learn how items like wheelbarrows, the first toothbrushes, and early earthquake detectors have evolved into devices we know today and discov…
This book addresses a largely untouched historical problem: the fourth to fifth centuries AD witnessed remarkably similar patterns of foreign invasion, conquest, and political fragmentation in Rome and China. Yet while the Western Roman Empire was n…
One of the great breakthroughs in Chinese studies in the early twentieth century was the archaeological identification of the earliest, fully historical dynasty of kings, the Shang (ca. 1300-1050 B.C.E.). The last fifty years have seen major advance…
There is a stark contrast between the overarching importance of history writing in imperial China and the meagerness of historical texts from the centuries preceding the imperial unification of 221 BCE. However, recently discovered bamboo manuscript…
The roles of women in Chinese archaeology, with only a few exceptions, have at worst been overlooked, and at best consigned to conventional Marxist theory that prescribes formulaic frameworks for understanding gender-until now. Renowned archaeologis…
An authoritative and rich history of the remarkable Xiongnu culture--a lost empire which preceded the Mongols and even China itself. The author of landmark histories such as Genghis Khan, Attila, and Xanadu invites us to discover a fertile period in…
This second volume of the ongoing annotated translation of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Shih chi (The Grand Scribe's Records), widely acknowledged as the most important early Chinese history, contains the "basic annals" of five early Han-dynasty emperors. The an…
Ancient China: A History surveys the East Asian Heartland Region - the geographical area that eventually became known as China - from the Neolithic period through the Bronze Age, to the early imperial era of Qin and Han, up to the threshold of the m…
Sima Qian (first century BCE), the author of Record of the Historian (Shiji), is China's earliest and best-known historian, and his "Letter to Ren An" is the most famous letter in Chinese history. In the letter, Sima Qian explains his decision to fi…
Imagine that you found 'dragon bones' once used to predict the future, or wrote a poem in the Book of Songs, or uncovered the terracotta army guarding the tomb of the First Emperor. Read more about life in this fascinating culture in this pocket-siz…
Luoyang, situated in present-day Henan province, was one of the great urban centres of pre-Qin and early imperial China, the favoured site for dynastic capitals for almost two millennia. This book, the first in any Western language on the subject, t…
In this book, Xiaolong Wu offers a comprehensive and in-depth study of the Zhongshan state during China's Warring States Period (476-221 BCE). Analyzing artefacts, inscriptions, and grandiose funerary structures within a broad archaeological context…
A history of the famous Terracotta Army in Xi'an, China, exploring what we now know about it, what remains hidden, and the fascinating theories that surround its creation. Exciting investigations in northwest China are about to reveal more of the my…
What modern boy or girl wouldn't want to be called "Precious Child," as parents in ancient China referred to their children? Or wear a beautiful silk brocade jacket, as wealthy youngsters did? Or nibble on a crunchy roasted cricket? This fun book ex…
A leading scholar in the United States on Chinese archaeology challenges long-standing conceptions of the rise of political authority in ancient China. Questioning Marx's concept of an "Asiatic" mode of production, Wittfogel's "hydraulic hypothesis,…
"An essential source for the study of events in early China, a guide to the moral philosophy of the gentlemen of Han, and a splendid work of literature which may be read for the pleasure of its style and the power of its narrative. . . . This work m…
This book studies the formation of complex societies in prehistoric China during the Neolithic and early state periods, ca. 7000–1500 BC. Archaeological materials are interpreted through anthropological perspectives, using systematic analytic…
Who founded China? Are Chinese people religious? What is Chinese culture and how has it changed over time? The accessible and fun Understanding China Through Comics series answers those questions and more. For all ages, Foundations of Chinese Civili…
Examines ancient China and how its politics, daily activities, art, religion, economy, and social structures worked together to form Chinese culture.
Considers the important aspects of life during the Han period, when the foundations were laid for the chief political, economic, cultural and social structures that would characterise imperial China.
In this lively and accessible account, with illustrations on nearly every page, Michael Loewe gives us a vivid picture of the lives of peasants working the land, the lives of town inhabitants, and the elaborate hierarchy of institutions and civil se…
Winner of the 2009 Society for American Archaeology Book Award Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius is based on the most up-to-date archaeological discoveries. It introduces new data, as well as new ways to think about them - modes of analysis th…
Explores the history and culture of Ancient China. Eye-catching photos, fascinating sidebars, and a "Contributions" special feature guide readers through the rise and fall of this great civilization, focusing on the people and accomplishments that m…
Mark E. Byington explores the formation, history, and legacy of the ancient state of Puy??, which existed in central Manchuria from the third century BCE until the late fifth century CE. As the earliest archaeologically attested state to arise in no…
The Liangzhu Culture (3,300-2,300 BC) represented the peak of prehistoric cultural and social development in the Yangtze Delta. With a wide sphere of influence centred near present-day Hangzhou City, Liangzhu City is considered one of the earliest u…
This stimulating, uniquely organized, and wonderfully readable comparison of ancient Rome and China offers provocative insights to students and general readers of world history. The book's narrative is clear, completely jargon-free, strikingly indep…
Buddhist steles represent an important subset of early Chinese Buddhist art that flourished during the Northern and Southern Dynasties period (386-581). More than two hundred Chinese Buddhist steles are known to have survived. Their brilliant imager…
You disobey the Emperor's orders and soon you're marching through deserts on your way to work on the Great Wall of China This interactive series will enthrall young and reluctant readers (Ages 8-12) by making them part of the story, inviting them t…
A study that makes use of an interdisciplinary approach to challenge traditional theories of state formation in China and promote debate on early Chinese history. Analyzing data from archaeology, geology, cultural geography, ethnohistory and ancient…
In this book, Li Min proposes a new paradigm for the foundation and emergence of the classical tradition in early China, from the late Neolithic through the Zhou period. Using a wide range of historical and archaeological data, he explains the devel…
In his classic study of the cultural history of Han China, Michael Loewe uses both archaeological discoveries and written records to sketch the conceptual background of various artifacts of the Han period, and shows how ancient Chinese thought is as…
Sheds light on the conceptual background of the Han period (202BC-AD220), in which seminal Chinese ideas in religion, philosophy, science and politics were formulated.
The Cambridge History of Ancient China provides a survey of the cultural history of pre-imperial China. Fourteen leading specialists on early Chinese history and archaeology cover more than one thousand years. There are two chapters for each time-pe…
For almost 2000 years, an essential chapter in the history of China was missing. The second and first centuries B.C. were a critical period - they saw the birth and development of the new Chinese Empire and its earliest expansion and acquisition of…
Forming the Early Chinese Court builds on new directions in comparative studies of royal courts in the ancient world to present a pioneering study of early Chinese court culture. Rejecting divides between literary, political, and administrative text…
Why did the past matter so greatly in ancient China? How did it matter and to whom? This is an innovative study of how the past was implicated in the long transition of power in early China, as embodied by the decline of the late Bronze Age aristocr…
The Han dynasty was the first to forge a stable empire governing all of China. It ruled during a golden age that shaped much of the nation's cultural history and development. In an effort to preserve their legacy of beauty and power, the Han created…
Dig through the fields of the far East to unearth the huge clay army of Chinas first emperor. Why were the thousands of life sized statues built? How were they designed with such intricate detail? Travel along with scientists to find out how the Ter…
