John Powers
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- April 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195174267
- eISBN:
- 9780199835447
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195174267.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This chapter begins with methodological issues, particularly how Chinese and Tibetan notions of historiography influence their respective constructions of Tibetan history.
This chapter begins with methodological issues, particularly how Chinese and Tibetan notions of historiography influence their respective constructions of Tibetan history.
John Powers
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- April 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195174267
- eISBN:
- 9780199835447
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195174267.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
Chapter 2 begins with Tibetan origin myths and looks at the debates over the marriage of Songtsen Gambo and Wencheng: was she a cultural ambassador for China? Was she a war bride? Was he a barbarian ...
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Chapter 2 begins with Tibetan origin myths and looks at the debates over the marriage of Songtsen Gambo and Wencheng: was she a cultural ambassador for China? Was she a war bride? Was he a barbarian who sought to eradicate his own culture and sinicize Tibet, or was he a military commander seeking to expand his empire? Or was he an incarnation of the buddha Avalokitesvara?Less
Chapter 2 begins with Tibetan origin myths and looks at the debates over the marriage of Songtsen Gambo and Wencheng: was she a cultural ambassador for China? Was she a war bride? Was he a barbarian who sought to eradicate his own culture and sinicize Tibet, or was he a military commander seeking to expand his empire? Or was he an incarnation of the buddha Avalokitesvara?
Huaiyin Li
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824836085
- eISBN:
- 9780824871338
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824836085.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter examines the rise of the modernization discourse and its impact on Chinese historiography in the late 1980s and the 1990s. Dissatisfied with the “outdated” revolutionary narrative, ...
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This chapter examines the rise of the modernization discourse and its impact on Chinese historiography in the late 1980s and the 1990s. Dissatisfied with the “outdated” revolutionary narrative, proreform historians showed a growing interest in the study of modernizing reforms and economic, social, cultural, and political changes that arguably contributed to China's modernization in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After scrutinizing Chinese scholars' conceptualization of “modernization” (its meanings, phases, and patterns) under the influence of Western modernization theories, this chapter explicates historians' deconstruction of the master narrative that had shaped revolutionary historiography and their new interpretations of a series of empirical issues that contributed to the formation of modernization historiography.Less
This chapter examines the rise of the modernization discourse and its impact on Chinese historiography in the late 1980s and the 1990s. Dissatisfied with the “outdated” revolutionary narrative, proreform historians showed a growing interest in the study of modernizing reforms and economic, social, cultural, and political changes that arguably contributed to China's modernization in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After scrutinizing Chinese scholars' conceptualization of “modernization” (its meanings, phases, and patterns) under the influence of Western modernization theories, this chapter explicates historians' deconstruction of the master narrative that had shaped revolutionary historiography and their new interpretations of a series of empirical issues that contributed to the formation of modernization historiography.
Susanne Weigelin‐Schwiedrzik
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780199225996
- eISBN:
- 9780191863431
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199225996.003.0031
- Subject:
- History, Historiography
This chapter studies how in China—divided by civil war into mainland China and Taiwan—two opposing political camps instrumentalized the writing of history for political purposes. With the beginning ...
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This chapter studies how in China—divided by civil war into mainland China and Taiwan—two opposing political camps instrumentalized the writing of history for political purposes. With the beginning of the end of the Cold War in East Asia around 1975–6, the writing of history on both sides of the Taiwan Straits underwent major changes. In Taiwan, questions of national identity became increasingly important, and it is no surprise that Taiwanese history grew in popularity. On the mainland, academic history-writing became gradually marginalized in the wake of a thorough commercialization of the historical field. The dominant discourse now turned anti-revolutionary, leaving the Communist Party in a difficult position as it faced the paradox that its legitimacy depended on the very revolutionary discourse now being attacked by a reformist paradigm that it needed to adopt in order to modernize the country.Less
This chapter studies how in China—divided by civil war into mainland China and Taiwan—two opposing political camps instrumentalized the writing of history for political purposes. With the beginning of the end of the Cold War in East Asia around 1975–6, the writing of history on both sides of the Taiwan Straits underwent major changes. In Taiwan, questions of national identity became increasingly important, and it is no surprise that Taiwanese history grew in popularity. On the mainland, academic history-writing became gradually marginalized in the wake of a thorough commercialization of the historical field. The dominant discourse now turned anti-revolutionary, leaving the Communist Party in a difficult position as it faced the paradox that its legitimacy depended on the very revolutionary discourse now being attacked by a reformist paradigm that it needed to adopt in order to modernize the country.
John E. Herman
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520230156
- eISBN:
- 9780520927537
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520230156.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter examines several sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Chinese texts on Guizhou province to see how the evolution of Chinese knowledge of Guizhou and its inhabitants represented China's ...
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This chapter examines several sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Chinese texts on Guizhou province to see how the evolution of Chinese knowledge of Guizhou and its inhabitants represented China's conquest and incorporation of this part of the Southwest Frontier. In traditional Chinese historiography, the rhetorical devices used to elucidate the ways in which the Chinese state extended its political control over frontier areas were for the most part self-validating. It looks at the beginnings of this transition from indirect to direct rule, as well as the transformation of tusi officials from independent frontier leaders to nominal Chinese officials.Less
This chapter examines several sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Chinese texts on Guizhou province to see how the evolution of Chinese knowledge of Guizhou and its inhabitants represented China's conquest and incorporation of this part of the Southwest Frontier. In traditional Chinese historiography, the rhetorical devices used to elucidate the ways in which the Chinese state extended its political control over frontier areas were for the most part self-validating. It looks at the beginnings of this transition from indirect to direct rule, as well as the transformation of tusi officials from independent frontier leaders to nominal Chinese officials.
N. Harry Rothschild and Leslie V. Wallace (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780824867812
- eISBN:
- 9780824875671
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824867812.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Focusing on a diverse cast of characters and/or depraved actions polemicized by writers from the Spring and Autumn period (771-476 B.C.E.) through the Song dynasty (960-1279 C.E.), this volume places ...
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Focusing on a diverse cast of characters and/or depraved actions polemicized by writers from the Spring and Autumn period (771-476 B.C.E.) through the Song dynasty (960-1279 C.E.), this volume places center stage transgressive individuals and groups traditionally demonized and marginalized by Confucian annalists and largely shunned by modern scholars. This interdisciplinary collection demonstrates that many of these so-called miscreants—treacherous regicides, impious monks, cutthroat underlings, ill-bred offspring, depraved poet-literati, and disloyal officials—were deemed so not because of a set of immutable social and religious norms, but by decisions and circumstances influenced by personal taste, contradictory value systems, and negotiations of political and social power.Less
Focusing on a diverse cast of characters and/or depraved actions polemicized by writers from the Spring and Autumn period (771-476 B.C.E.) through the Song dynasty (960-1279 C.E.), this volume places center stage transgressive individuals and groups traditionally demonized and marginalized by Confucian annalists and largely shunned by modern scholars. This interdisciplinary collection demonstrates that many of these so-called miscreants—treacherous regicides, impious monks, cutthroat underlings, ill-bred offspring, depraved poet-literati, and disloyal officials—were deemed so not because of a set of immutable social and religious norms, but by decisions and circumstances influenced by personal taste, contradictory value systems, and negotiations of political and social power.
N. Harry Rothschild and Leslie V. Wallace
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780824867812
- eISBN:
- 9780824875671
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824867812.003.0014
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This introductory chapter provides an overview of the three parts and thirteen chapters that comprise this volume, a series of focused case studies of personages and actions considered “bad” by early ...
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This introductory chapter provides an overview of the three parts and thirteen chapters that comprise this volume, a series of focused case studies of personages and actions considered “bad” by early and medieval Chinese writers. The first part contains four chapters examining distinctive ways in which core Confucian bonds, such as those between parents and children and ruler and minister, were compromised and even severed. Through a colorful collection of ostentatious Eastern Han mourners, deviant calligraphers, audacious falconers, volatile Tang Buddhist monks, and inebriated Song literati, the second part explores the elasticity of orthopraxy and heteropraxy in early and medieval China. The final part showcases four distinctive explorations of cultural attitudes toward military action and warfare. Collectively, the volume compels a serious reconsideration of larger questions of what and whom was considered aberrant, arguing that more often than not, definitions were based on personal taste, conflicting systems of values, and political and social expedience.Less
This introductory chapter provides an overview of the three parts and thirteen chapters that comprise this volume, a series of focused case studies of personages and actions considered “bad” by early and medieval Chinese writers. The first part contains four chapters examining distinctive ways in which core Confucian bonds, such as those between parents and children and ruler and minister, were compromised and even severed. Through a colorful collection of ostentatious Eastern Han mourners, deviant calligraphers, audacious falconers, volatile Tang Buddhist monks, and inebriated Song literati, the second part explores the elasticity of orthopraxy and heteropraxy in early and medieval China. The final part showcases four distinctive explorations of cultural attitudes toward military action and warfare. Collectively, the volume compels a serious reconsideration of larger questions of what and whom was considered aberrant, arguing that more often than not, definitions were based on personal taste, conflicting systems of values, and political and social expedience.
Christopher Cullen
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198733119
- eISBN:
- 9780191797705
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198733119.003.0002
- Subject:
- Mathematics, History of Mathematics
This chapter begins by sketching the historical and cultural foundations of the role played by astronomy in the self-presentation of the early imperial Chinese state, principally through its claim to ...
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This chapter begins by sketching the historical and cultural foundations of the role played by astronomy in the self-presentation of the early imperial Chinese state, principally through its claim to have the right to structure the time of its subjects by issuing a luni-solar calendar. This claim was presented as fulfilling a need on the part of the population; we discuss how far this claim was an accurate perception of the power relations involved. There follows a preliminary account of the main components of such a calendar, and of how they formed an integrated whole. Finally there is an introductory review of the main written sources on li曆‘[astronomical] systems’ on which much of this book will be based.Less
This chapter begins by sketching the historical and cultural foundations of the role played by astronomy in the self-presentation of the early imperial Chinese state, principally through its claim to have the right to structure the time of its subjects by issuing a luni-solar calendar. This claim was presented as fulfilling a need on the part of the population; we discuss how far this claim was an accurate perception of the power relations involved. There follows a preliminary account of the main components of such a calendar, and of how they formed an integrated whole. Finally there is an introductory review of the main written sources on li曆‘[astronomical] systems’ on which much of this book will be based.
