The thousands of ritual bronze vessels discovered by China's archaeologists serve as the major documentary source for the Western Zhou dynasty (1045-771 B.C.). These vessels contain long inscriptions full of detail on subjects as diverse as the military history of the period, the bureaucratic structure of the royal court, and lawsuits among the gentry. Moreover, being cast in bronze, the inscriptions preserve exactly the contemporary script and language. Shaughnessy has written a meticulous and detailed work on the historiography and interpretation of these objects. By demonstrating how the inscriptions are read and interpreted, Shaughnessy makes accessible in English some of the most important evidence about life in ancient China.
Zhou History Unearthed offers both a novel understanding of early Chinese historiography and a fully annotated translation of Xinian (String of Years), the most notable historical manuscript from the state of Chu. Yuri Pines details the importance of Xinian and other recently discovered texts for our understanding of history writing in Zhou China.
Millions upon millions of salmon and steelhead once filled California streams, providing a plentiful and sustainable food resource for the original peoples of the region. But over the years, dams and irrigation diversions have reduced natural spawning habitat from an estimated 6,000 miles to fewer than 300. River pollution has also hit hard at fish populations, which within recent decades have diminished by 80 percent. One species, the San Joaquin River spring chinook, became extinct soon after World War II. Other species are nearly extinct. This volume documents the reasons for the decline; it also offers practical suggestions about how the decline might be reversed. The California salmon story is presented here in human perspective: its broad historical, economic, cultural, and political facets, as well as the biological, are all treated. No comparable work has ever been published, although some of the material has been available for half a century. In the richly varied contributions in this volume, the reader meets Indians whose history is tied to the history of the salmon and steelhead upon which they depend; commercial trollers who see their livelihood and unique lifestyle vanishing; biologists and fishery managers alarmed at the loss of river water habitable by fish and at the effects of hatcheries on native gene pools. Women who fish, conservation-minded citizens, foresters, economists, outdoor writers, engineers, politicians, city youth restoring streambeds—all are represented. Their lives—and the lives of all Californians—are affected in myriad ways by the fate of California's salmon and steelhead. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1991.
Statecraft and Classical Learning is devoted to the Rituals of Zhou, one of the ancient Chinese Classics. In addition to its canonical stature in classical learning, the massive text was of unique significance to the pre-modern statecraft of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam where it served as the classical paradigm for government structure and was often invoked in movements of political reform. The present volume, with contributions from twelve leading North American, European, and East Asian scholars, is the first in any language to illuminate the Rituals in both dimensions. It presents a multi-faceted and fascinating picture of the life of the text from its inception some two millennia ago to its modern political and scholarly discourse.
This ook redefines the bureaucracy of Ancient Chinese society during the Western Zhou period. The analysis is based on inscriptions of royal edicts from the period carved into bronze vessels. The inscriptions clarify the political and social construction of the Western Zhou and the ways in which it exercised its authority.
The book is the volume of “The History of Science and Technology in Qin and Han Dynasty ” among a series of books of “Deep into China Histories”. The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC) and the Bamboo Annals (296 BC) describe a Xia dynasty (c. 2070–1600 BC) before the Shang, but no writing is known from the period The Shang ruled in the Yellow River valley, which is commonly held to be the cradle of Chinese civilization. However, Neolithic civilizations originated at various cultural centers along both the Yellow River and Yangtze River. These Yellow River and Yangtze civilizations arose millennia before the Shang. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest civilizations, and is regarded as one of the cradles of civilization.The Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC) supplanted the Shang and introduced the concept of the Mandate of Heaven to justify their rule. The central Zhou government began to weaken due to external and internal pressures in the 8th century BC, and the country eventually splintered into smaller states during the Spring and Autumn period. These states became independent and warred with one another in the following Warring States period. Much of traditional Chinese culture, literature and philosophy first developed during those troubled times.In 221 BC Qin Shi Huang conquered the various warring states and created for himself the title of Huangdi or "emperor" of the Qin, marking the beginning of imperial China. However, the oppressive government fell soon after his death, and was supplanted by the longer-lived Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). Successive dynasties developed bureaucratic systems that enabled the emperor to control vast territories directly. In the 21 centuries from 206 BC until AD 1912, routine administrative tasks were handled by a special elite of scholar-officials. Young men, well-versed in calligraphy, history, literature, and philosophy, were carefully selected through difficult government examinations. China's last dynasty was the Qing (1644–1912), which was replaced by the Republic of China in 1912, and in the mainland by the People's Republic of China in 1949.Chinese history has alternated between periods of political unity and peace, and periods of war and failed statehood – the most recent being the Chinese Civil War (1927–1949). China was occasionally dominated by steppe peoples, most of whom were eventually assimilated into the Han Chinese culture and population. Between eras of multiple kingdoms and warlordism, Chinese dynasties have ruled parts or all of China; in some eras control stretched as far as Xinjiang and Tibet, as at present. Traditional culture, and influences from other parts of Asia and the Western world (carried by waves of immigration, cultural assimilation, expansion, and foreign contact), form the basis of the modern culture of China.
The Mandate of Heaven was originally given to King Wen in the 11th century BC. King Wen is credited with founding the Zhou dynasty after he received the Mandate from Heaven to attack and overthrow the Shang dynasty. King Wen is also credited with creating the ancient oracle known as the Yijing or Book of Changes. This book validates King Wen's association with the Changes. It uncovers in the Changes a record of a total solar eclipse that was witnessed at King Wen's capital of Feng by his son King Wu, shortly after King Wen had died (before he had a chance to launch the full invasion). The sense of this eclipse as an actual event has been overlooked for three millennia. It provides an account of the events surrounding the conquest of the Shang and founding of the Zhou dynasty that has never been told. It shows how the earliest layer of the Book of Changes (the Zhouyi) has preserved a hidden history of the Conquest.
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 advances in all areas of Chinese archaeology, but recent studies of the Shang, their ancestors, and their contemporaries have been especially rich. Since the last English-language overview of Shang civilization appeared in 1980, the pace of discovery has quickened. China in the Early Bronze Age: Shang Civilization is the first work in twenty-five years to synthesize current knowledge of the Shang for everyone interested in the origins of Chinese civilization. China in the Early Bronze Age traces the development of early Bronze Age cultures in North and Northwestern China from about 2000 B.C.E., including the Erlitou culture (often identified with the Xia) and the Erligang culture. Robert L. Thorp introduces major sites, their architectural remains, burials, and material culture, with special attention to jades and bronze. He reviews the many discoveries near Anyang, site of two capitals of the Shang kings. In addition to the topography of these sites, Thorp discusses elite crafts and devotes a chapter to the Shang cult, its divination practices, and its rituals. The volume concludes with a survey of the late Shang world, cultures contemporary with Anyang during the late second millennium B.C.E. Fully documented with references to Chinese archaeological sources and illustrated with more than one hundred line drawings, China in the Early Bronze Age also includes informative sidebars on related topics and suggested readings. Students of the history and archaeology of early civilizations will find China in the Early Bronze Age the most up-to-date and wide-ranging introduction to its topic now in print. Scholars in Chinese studies will use this work as a handbook and research guide. This volume makes fascinating reading for anyone interested in the formative stages of Chinese culture.
