History : China

Zhang Dai is recognized as one of the finest historians and essayists of China’s Ming dynasty. When he was born into a wealthy family in 1597, the Ming dynasty had been in place for 229 years. Zhang’s early life was marked by the expansive sense of progress that permeated Ming culture: the flourishing of reformist schools of Buddhism; wide-scale philanthropy; the education of women; a celebration of the visual arts, writing, and music; intellectual pursuit of medicine and science—this was truly a time of cultural creativity and renaissance in China. When the Ming dynasty was overthrown in the Manchu invasion of 1644, Zhang Dai’s family lost their fortune and their way of life. Zhang Dai fled to the countryside, where, as a writer of tremendous skill, acuity, and passion, he spent his final forty years recounting his previous life as a way of leaving a legacy to his children and rebuilding a spirit shattered by the violent upheaval he had witnessed. Celebrated China scholar Jonathan Spence has pored over Zhang Dai’s extraordinary documents and vividly brings to life seventeenth-century China. This absorbing book illuminates a culture’s transformation and reveals how China’s history affects its place in the world today. more...

Price: $24.95

Shanghai and the Edges of Empires analyzes a century-long shift of urbanity from Chinas heartland to its shore. Simultaneously appropriating and resisting imposing forces, Shanghai opened itself to subversive practices, becoming a crucible of creativity and modernism. Meng Yue reveals the paradoxical interdependence between imperial and imperialist histories and the retranslation of culture that characterized the emergence of the city of Shanghai. more...

Price: $75.00

Tracing the transformation of opium from medicine to narcotic over a period of five hundred years, asking who introduced opium to China, how it spread across all sections of society. Accompanied by a fascinating collection of illustrations, this study offers a vivid and alternative perspective on life in China. more...

Price: $26.00

Representing an unprecedented collaboration among international scholars from Asia, Europe, and the United States, this volume rewrites the history of East Asia by rethinking the contentious relationship between Confucianism and women. The authors discuss the absence of women in the Confucian canonical tradition and examine the presence of women in politics, family, education, and art in premodern China, Korea, and Japan. more...

Price: $15.95